These short accounts of my experiences here in Southern Italy during the corona virus pandemic of 2020 were originally posted to Facebook and were a near-daily practice at the time, especially during the early weeks of the pandemic. They are in order of the most recent to the earliest and are largely unedited.
March 2020
March 11, My Italia
My Italia is not entirely herself today. Sure, she still is beautiful, even with her dust mask half on, hole cut out for her nose to peek through; even with shutters where there should be open doors and the smell of coffee. But she’s quieter than usual on a sunny late winter morning; the warmth and light has not brought with it the expected chaos. And, when we meet halfway through the empty piazza, she is perhaps just a little less exuberant in her affection: should I kiss you?
Should I not kiss you?
(Ok maybe just this once as I would be sorry to have missed the chance.)
My Italia is not entirely herself today. Sure, she still is beautiful, even with her dust mask half on, hole cut out for her nose to peek through; even with shutters where there should be open doors and the smell of coffee. But she’s quieter than usual on a sunny late winter morning; the warmth and light has not brought with it the expected chaos. And, when we meet halfway through the empty piazza, she is perhaps just a little less exuberant in her affection: should I kiss you?
Should I not kiss you?
(Ok maybe just this once as I would be sorry to have missed the chance.)
March 12, Touching
The discussion over lunch starts innocuously enough.
“I’m going to head over to the market [the only one that doesn’t close for three hours at lunch] before I head back to the studio. Anything in particular you think we need? “
“What? No. ARE YOU CRAZY?? You’re not going.”
I just look at him.
“…Because there’ll be PEOPLE there.”
“Um, yes… I would imagine there would be. It's a supermarket. But it’s lunchtime, so not so many.”
“NO. You’re not going. Absolutely not.”
For balance, every household needs one person who’s OCD is rearing its disinfected-6-times-today-already head, and one person who is continuously on the verge of a mass-murder-suicide trip.
20 minutes of heated debating later, I give up and agree that yes, the smartest thing, in fact the ONLY reasonable thing, to do is to wait until morning and go JUST as the store is opening so that the 6 hours during which the virus droplets can survive hanging in the air will have long passed by a wide margin and we’ll be safe from anyone who may have sneezed in the pasta aisle yesterday.
Of course we don’t get there just as the store opens. We get there about half an hour later with everyone else. Today, unlike typical mornings, “everyone else” is a very small number of people, many in masks. Some have surgical masks, the rest have dust-masks from the hardware store. I notice that no one can help but touch their mask… it must be weird to have it on your face.
“Everyone’s touching their masks.” He says grimly, dodging into the coffee aisle to avoid contact with an approaching mask-toucher.
I’m not wearing a mask, nor did I grab a pair of plastic gloves from the produce section because I clearly just don’t care if everyone dies, and I’m apparently touching everything else.
“Why are you TOUCHING everything???”
“I’m shopping.” I say, sort of patiently. “One has to touch things to get them from the shelf to the cart.”
“Yes but you're TOUCHING stuff and then PUTTING IT BACK!! What are you doing that for?? Just LOOK and THEN touch and then put in the cart and then STOP touching! How many things do you have to touch?? Do you know how many people have probably been in here just like you TOUCHING everything?”
I breathe deeply.
“Listen,” I say, “this is our exactly ONE and ONLY outing. No pizza, no coffee, no aperitivo, no lunch at mamma’s, no friends, NOTHING. I would like to enjoy 20 minutes in the supermarket TOUCHING things and seeing other human beings, from a safe distance, okay??”
“….Fifteen minutes.”
“WHAT?”
“Fifteen minutes— 20 is already too many. They say that if you limit your exposure to a possibly infected environment to 15 minutes, you should be safe…. What time did we get here? No, DON’T TOUCH YOUR PHONE. I’ll look.
....
The discussion over lunch starts innocuously enough.
“I’m going to head over to the market [the only one that doesn’t close for three hours at lunch] before I head back to the studio. Anything in particular you think we need? “
“What? No. ARE YOU CRAZY?? You’re not going.”
I just look at him.
“…Because there’ll be PEOPLE there.”
“Um, yes… I would imagine there would be. It's a supermarket. But it’s lunchtime, so not so many.”
“NO. You’re not going. Absolutely not.”
For balance, every household needs one person who’s OCD is rearing its disinfected-6-times-today-already head, and one person who is continuously on the verge of a mass-murder-suicide trip.
20 minutes of heated debating later, I give up and agree that yes, the smartest thing, in fact the ONLY reasonable thing, to do is to wait until morning and go JUST as the store is opening so that the 6 hours during which the virus droplets can survive hanging in the air will have long passed by a wide margin and we’ll be safe from anyone who may have sneezed in the pasta aisle yesterday.
Of course we don’t get there just as the store opens. We get there about half an hour later with everyone else. Today, unlike typical mornings, “everyone else” is a very small number of people, many in masks. Some have surgical masks, the rest have dust-masks from the hardware store. I notice that no one can help but touch their mask… it must be weird to have it on your face.
“Everyone’s touching their masks.” He says grimly, dodging into the coffee aisle to avoid contact with an approaching mask-toucher.
I’m not wearing a mask, nor did I grab a pair of plastic gloves from the produce section because I clearly just don’t care if everyone dies, and I’m apparently touching everything else.
“Why are you TOUCHING everything???”
“I’m shopping.” I say, sort of patiently. “One has to touch things to get them from the shelf to the cart.”
“Yes but you're TOUCHING stuff and then PUTTING IT BACK!! What are you doing that for?? Just LOOK and THEN touch and then put in the cart and then STOP touching! How many things do you have to touch?? Do you know how many people have probably been in here just like you TOUCHING everything?”
I breathe deeply.
“Listen,” I say, “this is our exactly ONE and ONLY outing. No pizza, no coffee, no aperitivo, no lunch at mamma’s, no friends, NOTHING. I would like to enjoy 20 minutes in the supermarket TOUCHING things and seeing other human beings, from a safe distance, okay??”
“….Fifteen minutes.”
“WHAT?”
“Fifteen minutes— 20 is already too many. They say that if you limit your exposure to a possibly infected environment to 15 minutes, you should be safe…. What time did we get here? No, DON’T TOUCH YOUR PHONE. I’ll look.
....
March 13, A calming thought
The first thing in the morning he reads out the numbers. There are many numbers and whether they’ve climbed or fallen since yesterday, they’re not good numbers.
In our house there’s no fever. There’s a jar full of coins by the front door. We don’t count them but I guess €3.53, our “rainy day fund”, the “financial cushion” I've heard people talk about. He wants to invest it in seeds for the garden. I know what goodness grows in the woods and think we should save it instead for our first caffè and cornetto out in the piazza when we’re finally allowed... we’ll have to split the cornetto (unless there’s more change than I think in the jar) but we’ll have had a moment of blissful civility.
I find it hard to settle down and work. My mind wants to go and follow thoughts like “Who buys art in a recession?” “How do I get home?” “Wait, am I home?”
Paint anyway.
Go down in a blaze of passion and beauty, neckerchief flapping behind you.
In the forest there is less drama. There’s excitement.
It’s spring! I walk and everything whispers “you’ve got your seasons mixed up is all... don’t worry for the autumn you’re feeling now, for the falling and chaos. Look! It’s just transformation.” It spreads it’s hands with that charming southern nonchalance.
And I look, and what was dead just yesterday is dressed in green and wildly waving flowers; is a riot, a choir, a caution thrown to the wind and caught in the updraft, flying heedlessly over the mountaintops, shouting: Nothing is forever!
As if this is a calming thought.
And yes, it is a calming thought.
The first thing in the morning he reads out the numbers. There are many numbers and whether they’ve climbed or fallen since yesterday, they’re not good numbers.
In our house there’s no fever. There’s a jar full of coins by the front door. We don’t count them but I guess €3.53, our “rainy day fund”, the “financial cushion” I've heard people talk about. He wants to invest it in seeds for the garden. I know what goodness grows in the woods and think we should save it instead for our first caffè and cornetto out in the piazza when we’re finally allowed... we’ll have to split the cornetto (unless there’s more change than I think in the jar) but we’ll have had a moment of blissful civility.
I find it hard to settle down and work. My mind wants to go and follow thoughts like “Who buys art in a recession?” “How do I get home?” “Wait, am I home?”
Paint anyway.
Go down in a blaze of passion and beauty, neckerchief flapping behind you.
In the forest there is less drama. There’s excitement.
It’s spring! I walk and everything whispers “you’ve got your seasons mixed up is all... don’t worry for the autumn you’re feeling now, for the falling and chaos. Look! It’s just transformation.” It spreads it’s hands with that charming southern nonchalance.
And I look, and what was dead just yesterday is dressed in green and wildly waving flowers; is a riot, a choir, a caution thrown to the wind and caught in the updraft, flying heedlessly over the mountaintops, shouting: Nothing is forever!
As if this is a calming thought.
And yes, it is a calming thought.
March 14, There are these eyes to fall into
I look into this face all afternoon because I don’t want to look at the news anymore. I don’t want to look out the window either right now but something’s going on so I do anyway. The carabinieri have stopped a car full of people who should’ve known better than to go four all together. To make it worse, they don’t have their documents in order: they’re missing the auto-certification that states where they’re going and proves that where they’re going is on the very short list of “acceptable” outings permitted. I watch the argument, the exchange of paperwork. They’ve been fined and they’ll have to go home to a full 15-day quarantine, no exit for any reason whatsoever now. The new directives for our region came out last night and are, inexplicably, more strident than the national regulations. It is even forbidden just to go for a walk. Out here in the countryside that makes no sense and I feel the stirring of revolt.
Where I go, they won’t find me.
He comes in to my studio after I’m lost again in the face of this blue-eyed Cherokee.
“Have you filled out your certificate?”
“No.“
“It could be three months in jail you know.“
But this is someone else’s movie, I want to say. In mine I’m a bird.
Instead I say, “Don’t worry I’ll do it before I leave.”
When I come home without it later he’s exasperated. To avoid the fight I ask him to fill me in on the news I’ve been avoiding. In the hospital in the next town over from ours they’ve confirmed a new case today. Great Britain isn’t shutting anything down. As if what we’re doing here is pointless.
Maybe what we’re doing here is pointless? Before the lockdown reached us we spent weeks in this argument but I hold my tongue. My opinion won’t change what is happening and we can’t know yet what’s right or wrong. I save my energy.
A car goes by with a loudspeaker blaring. It’s a woman’s voice and she tells us to stay indoors and keep windows closed tonight. At 11:30pm they’ll be, for our safety, spray-disinfecting the entire town. They don’t say with what. I want to go sleep up in the mountains, out in the open where the air is just air.
Later, not in the mountains and not falling asleep, I remember a different blue-eyed Cherokee, one gone crossed to the other side.
“Feed what you want to see grow,” he reminds me.
So I tear my attention from what wants to pull me under and I am painting again, behind closed eyes, dancing at the cool edge between shadow and light- the edge that defines the form, gives life. I remember what I know: the dark passages are essential, but best kept passive in this kind of painting— they are transparent, without detail; a whisper in our awareness. To draw too much attention to the shadow is to ruin the balance and beauty of the whole. Instead, seeking to activate, saturate, glorify the lights (feed what you want to see grow), I am tracing shapes on this golden face. There is a grey-violet in the soft turning-away of the cheek; vermillion warmth where there would be breathing or blood.
And there are these eyes to fall into, a deeper sea.
I look into this face all afternoon because I don’t want to look at the news anymore. I don’t want to look out the window either right now but something’s going on so I do anyway. The carabinieri have stopped a car full of people who should’ve known better than to go four all together. To make it worse, they don’t have their documents in order: they’re missing the auto-certification that states where they’re going and proves that where they’re going is on the very short list of “acceptable” outings permitted. I watch the argument, the exchange of paperwork. They’ve been fined and they’ll have to go home to a full 15-day quarantine, no exit for any reason whatsoever now. The new directives for our region came out last night and are, inexplicably, more strident than the national regulations. It is even forbidden just to go for a walk. Out here in the countryside that makes no sense and I feel the stirring of revolt.
Where I go, they won’t find me.
He comes in to my studio after I’m lost again in the face of this blue-eyed Cherokee.
“Have you filled out your certificate?”
“No.“
“It could be three months in jail you know.“
But this is someone else’s movie, I want to say. In mine I’m a bird.
Instead I say, “Don’t worry I’ll do it before I leave.”
When I come home without it later he’s exasperated. To avoid the fight I ask him to fill me in on the news I’ve been avoiding. In the hospital in the next town over from ours they’ve confirmed a new case today. Great Britain isn’t shutting anything down. As if what we’re doing here is pointless.
Maybe what we’re doing here is pointless? Before the lockdown reached us we spent weeks in this argument but I hold my tongue. My opinion won’t change what is happening and we can’t know yet what’s right or wrong. I save my energy.
A car goes by with a loudspeaker blaring. It’s a woman’s voice and she tells us to stay indoors and keep windows closed tonight. At 11:30pm they’ll be, for our safety, spray-disinfecting the entire town. They don’t say with what. I want to go sleep up in the mountains, out in the open where the air is just air.
Later, not in the mountains and not falling asleep, I remember a different blue-eyed Cherokee, one gone crossed to the other side.
“Feed what you want to see grow,” he reminds me.
So I tear my attention from what wants to pull me under and I am painting again, behind closed eyes, dancing at the cool edge between shadow and light- the edge that defines the form, gives life. I remember what I know: the dark passages are essential, but best kept passive in this kind of painting— they are transparent, without detail; a whisper in our awareness. To draw too much attention to the shadow is to ruin the balance and beauty of the whole. Instead, seeking to activate, saturate, glorify the lights (feed what you want to see grow), I am tracing shapes on this golden face. There is a grey-violet in the soft turning-away of the cheek; vermillion warmth where there would be breathing or blood.
And there are these eyes to fall into, a deeper sea.
March 15, The sound of bells
I wake to the sound of bells, as always. Despite the call to the early mass, the piazza won’t fill this morning. No one will lean against our kitchen window gossiping, unaware that we’re drinking our coffee inside. I don’t especially mind.
A piano sings faintly from two floors up. I’m slicing the bread when he comes in. I can tell something is different.
“What do we want to do today?” he says.
But this is my question. He never asks it. These past months he says things like, “I have to do this and then I have to do this and then I have to do this and then.... What does that even mean, “want”? Who gets to do what they “want” all day??”
I know I confound him with the way my compass works.
This week though only two job sites are running and his assistant is working on some drawings at home. There’s nothing to catch up on in the office this weekend, everything else is on hold. We talk about the weather instead of the news and he decides he wants to be outside this glorious day, to go do some work in the garden behind his mother’s house. He hasn’t seen her in well over a week. Worried for her, he’s kept his distance; eats lunch at our house instead. Twice already she’s called him saying, I’ve been baking. I’ve put some biscotti aside for you, come by.
More than twice he hasn’t gone by because two of the carpenters on one of the projects he’s managing have been quarantined and he has had contact with them. It isn’t worth the risk.
Today he goes, quickly and avoiding the piazza, so as not to disturb the carabinieri, and is very very careful. He doesn’t enter the house. They talk face to face, but she is up on the terrace, he stays down by the well. Her cough is better. She’s knitting things for his sister’s baby girl. She leaves him a panino wrapped in paper (no plate to touch and give back to her) and his brother brings him a beer.
I decide I want to walk in the woods and then go to work in the studio. (I realize I choose this quite often.) Sometime in the afternoon he calls. Arsenio with the stable across the road has made braids of mozzarella, do we want one? Of course we do. Emanuale’s making bread outside in the pizza oven, do we— yes, of course we do.
As I’m warming yesterday’s soup on the stove he comes home with the cheese, two kinds of biscotti; the bread his brother made. There’s also a small crostata, a jar of Rosario’s honey and a couple bottles of wine.
He says the apple trees and the pears have been pruned. We’ll get some good fruit this year. Tomorrow he’ll tackle the persimmon and mulberry. It’s almost too late for this work—everything’s starting to leaf out, to bloom. It’s fortunate timing really when you think of it. The artichoke patch has been weeded. Concetta’s cats are all in heat next door- what noise! The escarole is still too small to harvest. Do we want swiss chard? There’s swiss chard. And maybe a handful of brussel sprouts. You know, it’s incredible the number of birds...
Are you laughing?
No!
Why are you laughing?
It’s nice to see you like this again, I say.
I wake to the sound of bells, as always. Despite the call to the early mass, the piazza won’t fill this morning. No one will lean against our kitchen window gossiping, unaware that we’re drinking our coffee inside. I don’t especially mind.
A piano sings faintly from two floors up. I’m slicing the bread when he comes in. I can tell something is different.
“What do we want to do today?” he says.
But this is my question. He never asks it. These past months he says things like, “I have to do this and then I have to do this and then I have to do this and then.... What does that even mean, “want”? Who gets to do what they “want” all day??”
I know I confound him with the way my compass works.
This week though only two job sites are running and his assistant is working on some drawings at home. There’s nothing to catch up on in the office this weekend, everything else is on hold. We talk about the weather instead of the news and he decides he wants to be outside this glorious day, to go do some work in the garden behind his mother’s house. He hasn’t seen her in well over a week. Worried for her, he’s kept his distance; eats lunch at our house instead. Twice already she’s called him saying, I’ve been baking. I’ve put some biscotti aside for you, come by.
More than twice he hasn’t gone by because two of the carpenters on one of the projects he’s managing have been quarantined and he has had contact with them. It isn’t worth the risk.
Today he goes, quickly and avoiding the piazza, so as not to disturb the carabinieri, and is very very careful. He doesn’t enter the house. They talk face to face, but she is up on the terrace, he stays down by the well. Her cough is better. She’s knitting things for his sister’s baby girl. She leaves him a panino wrapped in paper (no plate to touch and give back to her) and his brother brings him a beer.
I decide I want to walk in the woods and then go to work in the studio. (I realize I choose this quite often.) Sometime in the afternoon he calls. Arsenio with the stable across the road has made braids of mozzarella, do we want one? Of course we do. Emanuale’s making bread outside in the pizza oven, do we— yes, of course we do.
As I’m warming yesterday’s soup on the stove he comes home with the cheese, two kinds of biscotti; the bread his brother made. There’s also a small crostata, a jar of Rosario’s honey and a couple bottles of wine.
He says the apple trees and the pears have been pruned. We’ll get some good fruit this year. Tomorrow he’ll tackle the persimmon and mulberry. It’s almost too late for this work—everything’s starting to leaf out, to bloom. It’s fortunate timing really when you think of it. The artichoke patch has been weeded. Concetta’s cats are all in heat next door- what noise! The escarole is still too small to harvest. Do we want swiss chard? There’s swiss chard. And maybe a handful of brussel sprouts. You know, it’s incredible the number of birds...
Are you laughing?
No!
Why are you laughing?
It’s nice to see you like this again, I say.
March 16, Restate a casa
I can hear them outside in the piazza. I peek through the curtains. There are three of them and they are clearly not following the order to "restate a casa", stay at home. They are keeping their distance from each other as suggested though, and there’s about a meter and a half or more between each of them. Which means they’re shouting at each other.
They’re shouting at each other, I tell him.
Yes, I know.
Should we say something?
What can we say?
I don’t know… “stop shouting”? “We live here”? “Go home for chrissake”?
My crankiness isn’t an effect of the lockdown. I don’t spend a lot of time at home because our apartment, like many ground-floor apartments, isn’t all that comfortable. It’s right up against the piazza, for one thing. It wasn’t intended to be used as living space. It should be shop, maybe, or a garage, now that no one keeps donkeys in it anymore. It’s dark and opens only to the street/piazza. I’m a tree-house dweller. A quiet tree-house dweller. So unless it’s raining heavily and no one comes outside, I tend to feel a little bombarded in this cave-like space: all the conversations, shouted or not, the bells, the cars, the filling and emptying of the piazza between morning mass and evening mass, the two-year old across the way whose parents put her out on the balcony to scream, delivery trucks idling, dogs in heat; rowdy soccer-like games at the inexplicable hour of 10pm. Our situation was supposed to be temporary, a transition between my 2nd floor apartment with the sunny south facing balcony and a house in the countryside. It’s been two years and we’ve agreed that a change is vital. We also agreed that since I have two residencies and a couple workshops planned and wouldn’t be here between March and September, we’d put off any move til the fall.
I plan, so God’s laughing. My mother’s probably laughing too because this is one of her favorite sayings. I’m not having particularly warm feelings towards either of them in this moment.
The only upside was that the order to “restate a casa” would mean an empty piazza. Peace in our apartment.
In theory anyway.
Finally my hero in pajama pants opens the door. The shouting buddies look over. There’s really no need for words. My hero holds out one hand and puts his fingers together as if taking a pinch of salt, upturned. He makes eye contact and wags the hand in their direction. Ragazzi, this says, whaddya doin’?
They nod and wave, understanding. Shortly afterwards there’s quiet again.
On the TV news there’s someone going around interviewing whoever they find on the street or at their open window in the southern city of Matera. There’s almost no one. Whoever they find though says the same thing: c’è la faremmo, we’ll make it.
In an empty piazza they interview an elderly man who talks animatedly about this unprecedented lockdown, about the durability of Italians; about the solidarity and strength of all the people at home right now. It is wonderful, he says, everyone working together for this.
He says: “However, for me…”
And then he shrugs. This gesture starts with a lift of the shoulders (I’m sorry but it’s impossible, it says) and moves, wavelike, down into the hands that open outwards (it’s out of my hands) and simultaneously up through the neck, tilting the head, making the chin jut out. The eyebrows raise. The mouth half-smiles. (Regretfully, there is nothing to be done.)
“… no. At home I just cannot stay.”
I can hear them outside in the piazza. I peek through the curtains. There are three of them and they are clearly not following the order to "restate a casa", stay at home. They are keeping their distance from each other as suggested though, and there’s about a meter and a half or more between each of them. Which means they’re shouting at each other.
They’re shouting at each other, I tell him.
Yes, I know.
Should we say something?
What can we say?
I don’t know… “stop shouting”? “We live here”? “Go home for chrissake”?
My crankiness isn’t an effect of the lockdown. I don’t spend a lot of time at home because our apartment, like many ground-floor apartments, isn’t all that comfortable. It’s right up against the piazza, for one thing. It wasn’t intended to be used as living space. It should be shop, maybe, or a garage, now that no one keeps donkeys in it anymore. It’s dark and opens only to the street/piazza. I’m a tree-house dweller. A quiet tree-house dweller. So unless it’s raining heavily and no one comes outside, I tend to feel a little bombarded in this cave-like space: all the conversations, shouted or not, the bells, the cars, the filling and emptying of the piazza between morning mass and evening mass, the two-year old across the way whose parents put her out on the balcony to scream, delivery trucks idling, dogs in heat; rowdy soccer-like games at the inexplicable hour of 10pm. Our situation was supposed to be temporary, a transition between my 2nd floor apartment with the sunny south facing balcony and a house in the countryside. It’s been two years and we’ve agreed that a change is vital. We also agreed that since I have two residencies and a couple workshops planned and wouldn’t be here between March and September, we’d put off any move til the fall.
I plan, so God’s laughing. My mother’s probably laughing too because this is one of her favorite sayings. I’m not having particularly warm feelings towards either of them in this moment.
The only upside was that the order to “restate a casa” would mean an empty piazza. Peace in our apartment.
In theory anyway.
Finally my hero in pajama pants opens the door. The shouting buddies look over. There’s really no need for words. My hero holds out one hand and puts his fingers together as if taking a pinch of salt, upturned. He makes eye contact and wags the hand in their direction. Ragazzi, this says, whaddya doin’?
They nod and wave, understanding. Shortly afterwards there’s quiet again.
On the TV news there’s someone going around interviewing whoever they find on the street or at their open window in the southern city of Matera. There’s almost no one. Whoever they find though says the same thing: c’è la faremmo, we’ll make it.
In an empty piazza they interview an elderly man who talks animatedly about this unprecedented lockdown, about the durability of Italians; about the solidarity and strength of all the people at home right now. It is wonderful, he says, everyone working together for this.
He says: “However, for me…”
And then he shrugs. This gesture starts with a lift of the shoulders (I’m sorry but it’s impossible, it says) and moves, wavelike, down into the hands that open outwards (it’s out of my hands) and simultaneously up through the neck, tilting the head, making the chin jut out. The eyebrows raise. The mouth half-smiles. (Regretfully, there is nothing to be done.)
“… no. At home I just cannot stay.”
March 17, Wheezy Pasqualino
"Micio!” I call.
The big picture, the global view, has receded this morning. My attention has been scattered wide lately. My attention has been on our family trifecta: China, Italy, New York. My attention has been in the valley: new cases; roads are blocked.
But my attention today is focused on a very localized and intimate detail of the global picture.
“Miciomiciomicio!”
There’s no response. There hasn’t been for a week now, but I try anyway. Today I leave the back door open, just in case, and go upstairs.
My studio is on the top floor, the first floor is for my architect; the ground floor is a garage and an extra room though which you can pass to where the hidden gardens are. They’re all fenced off, a crowded network of woodsheds and fig trees, vegetable gardens and laundry: the dominion of a clowder of cats. Wheezy Pasqualino, our cat (the “studio cat” now as it seemed cruel to bind all of us together with a litter box in a small apartment where there might be a fireplace to warm by, but no patches of sunlight to laze in) has joined them. It was awkward at first. We both watched, like anxious parents at the playground, from an upstairs window as Wheezy, in his first excursions out into the gardens, tried to make friends. He did what he usually does when faced with someone new: go right up and enthusiastically introduce himself. This did not make him popular. The other cats, cooler, older and more, well, cat-like, either ignored him or swatted at him. Little by little though he’s learned their ways, though in the studio, thankfully, he remains his effable self. When the front door opens in the morning he runs down the several flights of stairs to greet me. Sometimes I pick him up, mostly to keep him out from under my feet, and he holds on. He’s a hugger. Sometimes we have visitors and it simply never occurs to him to go hide somewhere like a “normal” cat when the door buzzes. He leaps up from his snooze and goes immediately to investigate. Guests coming up the stairs are greeted with a curious cat-face peering down at them through the balusters, and are then subject to the slightly impatient, penetrating look he gives them as he waits by their feet until they finally take the seat offered and create a comfortable lap. No one ever wants to leave. His charm is impossible to resist.
So with Wheezy Pasqualino not coming home, I am of course trying to guess what is happening. He with some elderly person and is keeping them company, as this time of quarantine is even more lonely than usual. He is dead in a ditch somewhere (my go-to scenario as a mother of any creature). He is stuck in the courtyard outside Pino’s kitchen window, like the only last time it happened that he didn’t come home.
But, no, we’ve checked. Twice.
I pass by Pino’s garden on the way back home for lunch. It’s the only one of the gardens on this block that opens to the street. Pino’s there, where he was yesterday and the day before and the day before that; where he’ll likely be for weeks, pruning, weeding, tending, organizing, until whatever in this well-curated space that ever seemed unruly has been manicured into splendor.
“Cara, what else am I going to do?’ he says, snipping a pile of pruned branches into smaller pieces to be used as kindling next fall. “I’m lucky to have this garden. If I had to stay inside all day… no. I couldn’t do it.”
Pino adds another alternative to my list of potential outcomes for Wheezy: earlier this week the doctor next door found a cat dead in his garden— not cat, a fluffy one. I know her. He thinks she was poisoned.
“We are a shit people, Meli`, a shit people.” Pino mutters through his teeth.
I find out that Rosa on the other side of the garden discovered the orange one in her yard. She thinks he was just old and sick but two is too many. It’s a quarter of the crowder.
My heart aches as I decide for a moment that Wheezy Pasqualino has been poisoned.
But I don’t know.
And I shake my head and smile as I decide that he’ll turn up just fine.
But I don’t know.
And I am torn.
It’s not the cat, it’s everything.
I start a list of all the things I don’t know and can’t know right now. It’s a long list. I’m missing so much information.
There is both anxiety and spaciousness with this thought. Anxiety for what I’d like to control, manage; organize. The spaciousness is in the surrender.
There is a large hawk circling in a perfect blue sky up near the bare treetops of the mountain above me. No net, no ground, no sureness; nothing to hold onto.
Breathe.
There is everything and nothing. Let go.
And the sky, as I float/fall/fly, is alive with possibility.“
"Micio!” I call.
The big picture, the global view, has receded this morning. My attention has been scattered wide lately. My attention has been on our family trifecta: China, Italy, New York. My attention has been in the valley: new cases; roads are blocked.
But my attention today is focused on a very localized and intimate detail of the global picture.
“Miciomiciomicio!”
There’s no response. There hasn’t been for a week now, but I try anyway. Today I leave the back door open, just in case, and go upstairs.
My studio is on the top floor, the first floor is for my architect; the ground floor is a garage and an extra room though which you can pass to where the hidden gardens are. They’re all fenced off, a crowded network of woodsheds and fig trees, vegetable gardens and laundry: the dominion of a clowder of cats. Wheezy Pasqualino, our cat (the “studio cat” now as it seemed cruel to bind all of us together with a litter box in a small apartment where there might be a fireplace to warm by, but no patches of sunlight to laze in) has joined them. It was awkward at first. We both watched, like anxious parents at the playground, from an upstairs window as Wheezy, in his first excursions out into the gardens, tried to make friends. He did what he usually does when faced with someone new: go right up and enthusiastically introduce himself. This did not make him popular. The other cats, cooler, older and more, well, cat-like, either ignored him or swatted at him. Little by little though he’s learned their ways, though in the studio, thankfully, he remains his effable self. When the front door opens in the morning he runs down the several flights of stairs to greet me. Sometimes I pick him up, mostly to keep him out from under my feet, and he holds on. He’s a hugger. Sometimes we have visitors and it simply never occurs to him to go hide somewhere like a “normal” cat when the door buzzes. He leaps up from his snooze and goes immediately to investigate. Guests coming up the stairs are greeted with a curious cat-face peering down at them through the balusters, and are then subject to the slightly impatient, penetrating look he gives them as he waits by their feet until they finally take the seat offered and create a comfortable lap. No one ever wants to leave. His charm is impossible to resist.
So with Wheezy Pasqualino not coming home, I am of course trying to guess what is happening. He with some elderly person and is keeping them company, as this time of quarantine is even more lonely than usual. He is dead in a ditch somewhere (my go-to scenario as a mother of any creature). He is stuck in the courtyard outside Pino’s kitchen window, like the only last time it happened that he didn’t come home.
But, no, we’ve checked. Twice.
I pass by Pino’s garden on the way back home for lunch. It’s the only one of the gardens on this block that opens to the street. Pino’s there, where he was yesterday and the day before and the day before that; where he’ll likely be for weeks, pruning, weeding, tending, organizing, until whatever in this well-curated space that ever seemed unruly has been manicured into splendor.
“Cara, what else am I going to do?’ he says, snipping a pile of pruned branches into smaller pieces to be used as kindling next fall. “I’m lucky to have this garden. If I had to stay inside all day… no. I couldn’t do it.”
Pino adds another alternative to my list of potential outcomes for Wheezy: earlier this week the doctor next door found a cat dead in his garden— not cat, a fluffy one. I know her. He thinks she was poisoned.
“We are a shit people, Meli`, a shit people.” Pino mutters through his teeth.
I find out that Rosa on the other side of the garden discovered the orange one in her yard. She thinks he was just old and sick but two is too many. It’s a quarter of the crowder.
My heart aches as I decide for a moment that Wheezy Pasqualino has been poisoned.
But I don’t know.
And I shake my head and smile as I decide that he’ll turn up just fine.
But I don’t know.
And I am torn.
It’s not the cat, it’s everything.
I start a list of all the things I don’t know and can’t know right now. It’s a long list. I’m missing so much information.
There is both anxiety and spaciousness with this thought. Anxiety for what I’d like to control, manage; organize. The spaciousness is in the surrender.
There is a large hawk circling in a perfect blue sky up near the bare treetops of the mountain above me. No net, no ground, no sureness; nothing to hold onto.
Breathe.
There is everything and nothing. Let go.
And the sky, as I float/fall/fly, is alive with possibility.“
March 18, The rhythm of the countryside
The cities and towns have all gone quiet but the countryside follows its own rhythm.
It is quiet in the winter. It is quiet when it rains. It is quiet briefly at midday most seasons, longer in summer. But it isn’t quiet now. Farmers don’t follow ordinances, they follow Nature. Today there tractors in the fields, chainsaws on the hillsides; three-wheeled trucks buzz from town to somewhere beyond and back again.
Today I’m tired and just want to hear the soothing noises that the forest makes. It is a glorious day.
On the pathway I find more people than I would expect. There are two others. It’s asparagus season— at least it should be but yesterday my architect found only three slim spears. He’s much better at looking for them than I am. He has the ability to focus on their shape and single them out from the chaos of spring growth on the rocky hillsides. I instead look at everything and find things that aren’t asparagus. In these excursions we will often wander away from each other, spreading out to cover more ground. I will hear his whistle: where are you? We’ll meet somewhere overlooking the valley and he will have handfuls of the tender shoots and I’ll have handfuls of other things, twigs in my hair and calendula petals on my chin.
Look! We have a salad to go with the frittata! I’ll say as I show him the chickweed and violets and cucumber-y burnet.
Today I climb up to where the hillside no longer faces the valley but becomes part of the inside of a network of hills and mountains and trails. It’s March but there’s no mud on my boots. I find a wide grassy patch alongside a dry stream bed and I lay down on the hard greening ground. In a few weeks the green should be thigh-deep with nettles and borage; blackberries and burdock. I listen and the sounds of the valley are so distant that I can barely hear them above the breeze through the bare branches, the bird calls and the buzzing of bees. It is a glorious day. We’ve had so many of them that this winter has hardly seemed like winter.
In the cities where it’s quiet now I wonder if they can hear what I do in the forest, belly pressed against the Earth. There’s no one here to talk about growing numbers or falling numbers, about the dead that can’t be mourned; about what’s closed, what’s lost or what to do alone at home. Beneath this unyielding blue sky there is an even greater unease. My ear against the Earth I hear what she’s been saying for months: there’s no water enough in this wood to keep it from burning come summer, no water enough in the fields to keep them giving.
It is a glorious day. The cities and towns have all gone quiet.
The cities and towns have all gone quiet but the countryside follows its own rhythm.
It is quiet in the winter. It is quiet when it rains. It is quiet briefly at midday most seasons, longer in summer. But it isn’t quiet now. Farmers don’t follow ordinances, they follow Nature. Today there tractors in the fields, chainsaws on the hillsides; three-wheeled trucks buzz from town to somewhere beyond and back again.
Today I’m tired and just want to hear the soothing noises that the forest makes. It is a glorious day.
On the pathway I find more people than I would expect. There are two others. It’s asparagus season— at least it should be but yesterday my architect found only three slim spears. He’s much better at looking for them than I am. He has the ability to focus on their shape and single them out from the chaos of spring growth on the rocky hillsides. I instead look at everything and find things that aren’t asparagus. In these excursions we will often wander away from each other, spreading out to cover more ground. I will hear his whistle: where are you? We’ll meet somewhere overlooking the valley and he will have handfuls of the tender shoots and I’ll have handfuls of other things, twigs in my hair and calendula petals on my chin.
Look! We have a salad to go with the frittata! I’ll say as I show him the chickweed and violets and cucumber-y burnet.
Today I climb up to where the hillside no longer faces the valley but becomes part of the inside of a network of hills and mountains and trails. It’s March but there’s no mud on my boots. I find a wide grassy patch alongside a dry stream bed and I lay down on the hard greening ground. In a few weeks the green should be thigh-deep with nettles and borage; blackberries and burdock. I listen and the sounds of the valley are so distant that I can barely hear them above the breeze through the bare branches, the bird calls and the buzzing of bees. It is a glorious day. We’ve had so many of them that this winter has hardly seemed like winter.
In the cities where it’s quiet now I wonder if they can hear what I do in the forest, belly pressed against the Earth. There’s no one here to talk about growing numbers or falling numbers, about the dead that can’t be mourned; about what’s closed, what’s lost or what to do alone at home. Beneath this unyielding blue sky there is an even greater unease. My ear against the Earth I hear what she’s been saying for months: there’s no water enough in this wood to keep it from burning come summer, no water enough in the fields to keep them giving.
It is a glorious day. The cities and towns have all gone quiet.
March 19, A bundle of sticks
Today is the festival of San Giuseppe. Yesterday, troops roll through Napoli, the seat of the region of Campania where I live. The day before that, my architect is stopped in the street in front of our studio. They tell him he has to work from home. If they see him again they will fine him. It doesn’t escape me that the origins of fascism are Italian. “Fascina”: a bundle of sticks, strength in unity. I’m sure it sounded reasonable at the time.
“It doesn’t escape me that the origins of fascism are Italian.” I say.
He thinks I’m overreacting.
Of course I’m overreacting. I feel like the canary in this coal mine.
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. It isn’t just a song to me, and the losing doesn't always come easy. Somewhere in my psyche it isn’t a canary that’s braced and baring it’s teeth.
The President of our region has gone above and beyond the orders of the Prime Minister and has issued an ordinance that no one can leave the house for ANY reason other than medical, food-related or “essential personnel” like those in local government offices. Artists and architects are not considered “essential personnel”. “Work from home” means work from home or don’t work at all. He’s called on the military to help enforce this.
“Can he do this? CAN HE JUST MAKE UP A NEW LAW? What gives him this power?”
“I don’t know.”
I understand the spirit of the law; I understand trying to protect people. I understand how to make choices for the good of the whole. My unwillingness to cooperate should not be mistaken for recklessness.
“But someone would have to literally launch themselves out of their house and tackle me to the ground to breathe on me or to get me to breathe on them” It’s a small town, already under populated. “I’M NOT AN IDIOT, I don’t see anyone, don’t touch anyone, haven’t gone to your mother’s in two weeks, I KNOW HOW TO WASH MY FUCKING HANDS… I haven’t even gone to do the shopping in over a week. AND NOW YOU’RE SAYING I CAN’T COME TO THE STUDIO??”
He understands that this isn’t a good time to argue with me. We’ve had conversations like this before. I say things like: freedom is our birthright and our natural state; we lose it when we fail to take responsibility for ourselves, we cause its demise when we refuse to respect the freedom of others or put our personal freedom above theirs. He says things like: It is a delicate balance.
“WHAT CAN THEY DO TO ME if they stop me and I don’t give them my documents? What? I forgot them at home and what? We all just STAND THERE LOOKING AT EACH OTHER?? Seriously, what can they do?”
He remains calm. “They will arrest you. It’s against the law to leave the house without your identification. Under any circumstances. It isn’t about this lockdown.”
He goes back down to his office to make some phone calls to friends and friends of friends: two carabinieri (one a captain), and a lawyer. He wants to understand the situation better.
Yesterday, understanding the situation better, he works from home.
Yesterday I am too tired to work so I go sleep on the grass in the woods. If you break a law in the forest and no one is there to see you, should it be a law? After lunch I sleep the rest of the day on our sofa and dream of my old front porch, of a 1920s bungalow with as many windows as walls; with rooms enough to spread out, each one filled with light and air; a roof to climb out on for a different perspective; a yard filled with violets, and the shade of a pecan tree.
It only takes a day and he decides that it is impossible to work from home.
“We can sleep at the studio,” I say.
If it comes to it, he agrees, we’ll sleep at the studio. There’s extra room, there’s a bed; a microwave and fridge. Sunlight comes in every window. We won’t have hot water but it’s a small sacrifice to pay.
Today we both come to the building, separately; carrying our lunch so we don’t have to leave until tonight. The fewer trips the better. Here, I pray in color and form; in shapes of light. Here I give the answer I always do when there aren't answers: Here, I am here, it is this moment only and I am here.
We lunch in the sun in my terrace and make a list of birds.
Today is the festival of San Giuseppe. Yesterday, troops roll through Napoli, the seat of the region of Campania where I live. The day before that, my architect is stopped in the street in front of our studio. They tell him he has to work from home. If they see him again they will fine him. It doesn’t escape me that the origins of fascism are Italian. “Fascina”: a bundle of sticks, strength in unity. I’m sure it sounded reasonable at the time.
“It doesn’t escape me that the origins of fascism are Italian.” I say.
He thinks I’m overreacting.
Of course I’m overreacting. I feel like the canary in this coal mine.
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. It isn’t just a song to me, and the losing doesn't always come easy. Somewhere in my psyche it isn’t a canary that’s braced and baring it’s teeth.
The President of our region has gone above and beyond the orders of the Prime Minister and has issued an ordinance that no one can leave the house for ANY reason other than medical, food-related or “essential personnel” like those in local government offices. Artists and architects are not considered “essential personnel”. “Work from home” means work from home or don’t work at all. He’s called on the military to help enforce this.
“Can he do this? CAN HE JUST MAKE UP A NEW LAW? What gives him this power?”
“I don’t know.”
I understand the spirit of the law; I understand trying to protect people. I understand how to make choices for the good of the whole. My unwillingness to cooperate should not be mistaken for recklessness.
“But someone would have to literally launch themselves out of their house and tackle me to the ground to breathe on me or to get me to breathe on them” It’s a small town, already under populated. “I’M NOT AN IDIOT, I don’t see anyone, don’t touch anyone, haven’t gone to your mother’s in two weeks, I KNOW HOW TO WASH MY FUCKING HANDS… I haven’t even gone to do the shopping in over a week. AND NOW YOU’RE SAYING I CAN’T COME TO THE STUDIO??”
He understands that this isn’t a good time to argue with me. We’ve had conversations like this before. I say things like: freedom is our birthright and our natural state; we lose it when we fail to take responsibility for ourselves, we cause its demise when we refuse to respect the freedom of others or put our personal freedom above theirs. He says things like: It is a delicate balance.
“WHAT CAN THEY DO TO ME if they stop me and I don’t give them my documents? What? I forgot them at home and what? We all just STAND THERE LOOKING AT EACH OTHER?? Seriously, what can they do?”
He remains calm. “They will arrest you. It’s against the law to leave the house without your identification. Under any circumstances. It isn’t about this lockdown.”
He goes back down to his office to make some phone calls to friends and friends of friends: two carabinieri (one a captain), and a lawyer. He wants to understand the situation better.
Yesterday, understanding the situation better, he works from home.
Yesterday I am too tired to work so I go sleep on the grass in the woods. If you break a law in the forest and no one is there to see you, should it be a law? After lunch I sleep the rest of the day on our sofa and dream of my old front porch, of a 1920s bungalow with as many windows as walls; with rooms enough to spread out, each one filled with light and air; a roof to climb out on for a different perspective; a yard filled with violets, and the shade of a pecan tree.
It only takes a day and he decides that it is impossible to work from home.
“We can sleep at the studio,” I say.
If it comes to it, he agrees, we’ll sleep at the studio. There’s extra room, there’s a bed; a microwave and fridge. Sunlight comes in every window. We won’t have hot water but it’s a small sacrifice to pay.
Today we both come to the building, separately; carrying our lunch so we don’t have to leave until tonight. The fewer trips the better. Here, I pray in color and form; in shapes of light. Here I give the answer I always do when there aren't answers: Here, I am here, it is this moment only and I am here.
We lunch in the sun in my terrace and make a list of birds.
March 20, Close to the ground
Usually I don’t see anyone when I go walking in the woods. Months will go by and maybe I will see one person collecting kindling and maybe I’ll see somebody else hunting mushrooms. I’ve learned seasons by questions like: where are you going? You going to pick chestnuts? The questions that come whenever I’m caught going up the hill by someone in town, as they remember something they did when they were children. There are few reasons to venture into the forest.
I’ve learned to say “walnuts” in the fall and “asparagus” in the spring because not everyone understands the roots and green medicine I gather, not even here where all the most beloved beliefs are pagan. Today there were more asparagus pickers than I’ve ever seen at one time before. We keep our distance and nod buongiorno. I ask someone clinging to the steep hillside if he’s had any luck.
“Not too much but it passes the time.”
There are helicopters in the sky today, to remind us where we’re supposed to be. But after a thousand of years of outside rule (or no rule at all) many of the folks of this valley are unperturbed. Coming down the trail and into town and back to the studio I pass, as usual, Pino’s garden. He’s there and I forget to wish him a happy name day (it was yesterday anyway). He’s there as he’s been for days and he’s still trimming the smallest branches from the smallest branches from whatever branches he’s pruned from his trees.
I wonder where all the branches will go as they should have been burned yesterday in bonfires that should have lit up the night for miles around in all the towns that San Giuseppe watches over. It’s a celebration of spring that starts after dark on the last day of winter with wine and sandwiches and sugared zeppole. Here the Church is just a disguise, a jacket and a hat for the old worshippers of nature who burn the Witch of Winter on this auspicious night. Without the festival, what will come of spring? The forecast is calling for snow next week.
We are close to the ground here.
Usually I don’t see anyone when I go walking in the woods. Months will go by and maybe I will see one person collecting kindling and maybe I’ll see somebody else hunting mushrooms. I’ve learned seasons by questions like: where are you going? You going to pick chestnuts? The questions that come whenever I’m caught going up the hill by someone in town, as they remember something they did when they were children. There are few reasons to venture into the forest.
I’ve learned to say “walnuts” in the fall and “asparagus” in the spring because not everyone understands the roots and green medicine I gather, not even here where all the most beloved beliefs are pagan. Today there were more asparagus pickers than I’ve ever seen at one time before. We keep our distance and nod buongiorno. I ask someone clinging to the steep hillside if he’s had any luck.
“Not too much but it passes the time.”
There are helicopters in the sky today, to remind us where we’re supposed to be. But after a thousand of years of outside rule (or no rule at all) many of the folks of this valley are unperturbed. Coming down the trail and into town and back to the studio I pass, as usual, Pino’s garden. He’s there and I forget to wish him a happy name day (it was yesterday anyway). He’s there as he’s been for days and he’s still trimming the smallest branches from the smallest branches from whatever branches he’s pruned from his trees.
I wonder where all the branches will go as they should have been burned yesterday in bonfires that should have lit up the night for miles around in all the towns that San Giuseppe watches over. It’s a celebration of spring that starts after dark on the last day of winter with wine and sandwiches and sugared zeppole. Here the Church is just a disguise, a jacket and a hat for the old worshippers of nature who burn the Witch of Winter on this auspicious night. Without the festival, what will come of spring? The forecast is calling for snow next week.
We are close to the ground here.
March 21, Everything yours is mine
I’ve just come home from the studio for lunch and he’s still in pajamas. This is unusual.
I kiss his forehead.
“No fever. “ I say.
“I should take my temperature.”
“I’m 100% sure that you don’t have a fever.” I say walking past him towards the kitchen. I take temperatures the way my mother did, with a kiss to the forehead. Only if it’s important to know the number do we take out a thermometer.
I see that the thermometer is on the table by the sofa. “How many times have you taken your temperature today?”
He responds by taking the thermometer out of its case and sticking it under his arm. Every half hour all morning then.
“I could be really sick you know. I was coughing. A lot.”
“When?” I heard nothing all night or before I left.
“All morning. And my throat feels funny.” The thermometer beeps. Normal.
“Have you been taking the olive leaf tincture I made?” I say from the kitchen. We both know what he’s thinking and I’m not inclined towards panic.
“Yes, I took some this morning.” He comes in.
“And your throat is burning or is it aching?”
“Burning.”
“And do you feel hot or cold in general right now, in your body.”
“Cold.” He pulls his grandfathers wool sweater closed and goes back to the sofa.
I prepare a hot tisane with sage (for the throat) and ginger (because he feels chilly), adding a little honey to soothe both the throat and the heart and a squeeze of lemon to pull it all together.
After lunch I bring up that another outing to the supermarket may be in order. We’re out of eggs and wine, among other things. (No, we haven’t been subsisting on just eggs and wine).
“I’m not sure if we should go. I don’t feel so well.” He has the thermometer in his hand again.
“Of course you shouldn’t go. I can go. I’ll just go to AnnaMaria’s. We don’t need much.”
I go out and instead of walking across the small piazza to the bottega on the corner, I turn left and walk up the narrow street towards the house of a young friend. He’s 19 and, abandoned by his family as they fled a rival clan, set out from Ghana a couple years ago. After the long and dangerous trip so many like him make, he arrived at the port of Salerno, surprised to learn that Europeans spoke a language other than English, the language he learned in school. We became friends, passing in the street one day. I was happy to see the rich color of his skin and he was happy to discover that I speak English. He’s alone and in that in-between state before boys become men, so I can’t help but mother him a little. We spoke yesterday and he told me he didn’t have internet or any books to read. Finding a copy of Old Man and the Sea, I’d left it on his doorstep this morning. The book is still there. And the house is dark. I knock firmly on the door and call his name. The light comes on, the door opens. He’s been sleeping all day.
“You can’t just sleep all day!” I fake exasperation.
He laughs. And he’s happy for the book. It’s not really about the book.
“It’s a classic for high school reading in the States. I’m not sure you’ll like it but… “
“Thank you. Of course I will try it.”
“And wash your hands! I’m not sick but I touched the book and--“
He laughs again. “Of course, of course, it’s just the precaution.” His accent is a lilt between British and something African.
“Ok, well, eat something! Are you eating? And get a little air … do you need anything? Don’t forget to wash your hands!” He’s still laughing as I shout and turn to go back down the piazza. I can’t help myself. One of my own boys is on another continent and the other may as well be.
At the bodega I wander up one aisle and back down the other. Eggs, paper towels.
“Cara, I’ll take that last scamorza please.”
At the cash register, I can see Annamaria is tired, but I ask her how she is anyway.
Her eyes are suddenly wet. She is tired and worried; terrified really. Her words are muffled by her mask and she wipes down the counter with alcohol as she talks: her mother, her daughter who is small for her age, her son who is home from university and helping at the store.
“I want him to stay home but he says I won’t leave your side mamma.”
It’s the present: there are two more cases in this town since yesterday, others in her town across the valley. Only two ICU beds in the hospital. It’s the future: What kind of future will our children have? What will they do? I’ve invested everything in this store. How will we get through this? Everything is already changed.
“You know I love to hug people, but I can’t hug anyone anymore. I don’t know, after this is over, I don’t know if I’ll even be able to hug anyone anymore. Maybe I won’t want to; I won’t trust this. Even my own son, he hugs me this morning and I tell him, you can’t hug me! But he says, everything yours is mine.”
I listen. Everyone needs a witness sometimes.
“I understand,” I say finally. “It’s such a scary time.”
Everyone needs permission to be terrified sometimes.
“It’s true that we don’t really know how this will turn out. We can’t say what the future will bring. Everyone’s doing what they can though.” I say. “Look, you’re showing up. This community needs you right now. You’re doing everything you can.”
Everyone needs to know that they’re enough sometimes.
“This might sound crazy,” I say, “But I see some good things coming out of this. Yes, we’ll have some challenges to face-- let’s be realistic-- but there’s already good coming out of this. We’re seeing what needs to be fixed in our world. There will be opportunity to work together. And the environment-- ”
She nods and starts talking about the canals in Venice. Have you seen the canals? And about the clean air over Rome.
“Oh, and my husband had to make a delivery in Napoli the other day. He was driving his truck to Napoli and he said, cara mia, I’ve never seen it so beautiful there before. Vesuvio! You should have seen it! Just perfect and clear... Incredible.”
I could tell that behind her mask she was smiling a little.
She took a deep breath.
“We just have to carry on Melì.”
I’ve just come home from the studio for lunch and he’s still in pajamas. This is unusual.
I kiss his forehead.
“No fever. “ I say.
“I should take my temperature.”
“I’m 100% sure that you don’t have a fever.” I say walking past him towards the kitchen. I take temperatures the way my mother did, with a kiss to the forehead. Only if it’s important to know the number do we take out a thermometer.
I see that the thermometer is on the table by the sofa. “How many times have you taken your temperature today?”
He responds by taking the thermometer out of its case and sticking it under his arm. Every half hour all morning then.
“I could be really sick you know. I was coughing. A lot.”
“When?” I heard nothing all night or before I left.
“All morning. And my throat feels funny.” The thermometer beeps. Normal.
“Have you been taking the olive leaf tincture I made?” I say from the kitchen. We both know what he’s thinking and I’m not inclined towards panic.
“Yes, I took some this morning.” He comes in.
“And your throat is burning or is it aching?”
“Burning.”
“And do you feel hot or cold in general right now, in your body.”
“Cold.” He pulls his grandfathers wool sweater closed and goes back to the sofa.
I prepare a hot tisane with sage (for the throat) and ginger (because he feels chilly), adding a little honey to soothe both the throat and the heart and a squeeze of lemon to pull it all together.
After lunch I bring up that another outing to the supermarket may be in order. We’re out of eggs and wine, among other things. (No, we haven’t been subsisting on just eggs and wine).
“I’m not sure if we should go. I don’t feel so well.” He has the thermometer in his hand again.
“Of course you shouldn’t go. I can go. I’ll just go to AnnaMaria’s. We don’t need much.”
I go out and instead of walking across the small piazza to the bottega on the corner, I turn left and walk up the narrow street towards the house of a young friend. He’s 19 and, abandoned by his family as they fled a rival clan, set out from Ghana a couple years ago. After the long and dangerous trip so many like him make, he arrived at the port of Salerno, surprised to learn that Europeans spoke a language other than English, the language he learned in school. We became friends, passing in the street one day. I was happy to see the rich color of his skin and he was happy to discover that I speak English. He’s alone and in that in-between state before boys become men, so I can’t help but mother him a little. We spoke yesterday and he told me he didn’t have internet or any books to read. Finding a copy of Old Man and the Sea, I’d left it on his doorstep this morning. The book is still there. And the house is dark. I knock firmly on the door and call his name. The light comes on, the door opens. He’s been sleeping all day.
“You can’t just sleep all day!” I fake exasperation.
He laughs. And he’s happy for the book. It’s not really about the book.
“It’s a classic for high school reading in the States. I’m not sure you’ll like it but… “
“Thank you. Of course I will try it.”
“And wash your hands! I’m not sick but I touched the book and--“
He laughs again. “Of course, of course, it’s just the precaution.” His accent is a lilt between British and something African.
“Ok, well, eat something! Are you eating? And get a little air … do you need anything? Don’t forget to wash your hands!” He’s still laughing as I shout and turn to go back down the piazza. I can’t help myself. One of my own boys is on another continent and the other may as well be.
At the bodega I wander up one aisle and back down the other. Eggs, paper towels.
“Cara, I’ll take that last scamorza please.”
At the cash register, I can see Annamaria is tired, but I ask her how she is anyway.
Her eyes are suddenly wet. She is tired and worried; terrified really. Her words are muffled by her mask and she wipes down the counter with alcohol as she talks: her mother, her daughter who is small for her age, her son who is home from university and helping at the store.
“I want him to stay home but he says I won’t leave your side mamma.”
It’s the present: there are two more cases in this town since yesterday, others in her town across the valley. Only two ICU beds in the hospital. It’s the future: What kind of future will our children have? What will they do? I’ve invested everything in this store. How will we get through this? Everything is already changed.
“You know I love to hug people, but I can’t hug anyone anymore. I don’t know, after this is over, I don’t know if I’ll even be able to hug anyone anymore. Maybe I won’t want to; I won’t trust this. Even my own son, he hugs me this morning and I tell him, you can’t hug me! But he says, everything yours is mine.”
I listen. Everyone needs a witness sometimes.
“I understand,” I say finally. “It’s such a scary time.”
Everyone needs permission to be terrified sometimes.
“It’s true that we don’t really know how this will turn out. We can’t say what the future will bring. Everyone’s doing what they can though.” I say. “Look, you’re showing up. This community needs you right now. You’re doing everything you can.”
Everyone needs to know that they’re enough sometimes.
“This might sound crazy,” I say, “But I see some good things coming out of this. Yes, we’ll have some challenges to face-- let’s be realistic-- but there’s already good coming out of this. We’re seeing what needs to be fixed in our world. There will be opportunity to work together. And the environment-- ”
She nods and starts talking about the canals in Venice. Have you seen the canals? And about the clean air over Rome.
“Oh, and my husband had to make a delivery in Napoli the other day. He was driving his truck to Napoli and he said, cara mia, I’ve never seen it so beautiful there before. Vesuvio! You should have seen it! Just perfect and clear... Incredible.”
I could tell that behind her mask she was smiling a little.
She took a deep breath.
“We just have to carry on Melì.”
March 22, Opposing agendas
For the first time since the lockdown began, I actually stay home, inside, all day. I make us crepes for breakfast and then settle into the chair by the fireplace. There’s no fire, and there won’t be, but I can smell smoke every time the wind blows the smoke from someone else’s fire down our chimney. There’s been no fire since our chimney caught fire last year. Though not actually very dangerous—our buildings aren’t built of flammable materials and the fire didn’t escape the chimney—the episode was pretty terrifying and illuminated the fact that a chimney that zigzags it’s way to the roof is not a healthy chimney, even if it’s been like that for 40 years since the palazzo was hastily rebuilt after the earthquake. I’d been convinced it was poisoning us by smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning for some time and am not especially disappointed not to have a blaze going.
I brought my computer home last night and some work to do: a proposal to write, some emails, a new artist statement. L. has his computer and some work to do too. I envision a day of quiet camaraderie, a pot of soup on the stove, a cup of tea nearby; trading places… do you want the chair now and I’ll take the sofa? Should we bake something? But my companion has decided that “we” need to clean. I beg off, citing the above-mentioned work.
The chair I’m in just fits between the fireplace and the door to a vestibule from which you can turn immediately to the left and be in a small windowless storage room, or immediately to the right and find the small kitchen. After about an hour of working, I swing my legs over the side of the chair and get up, opening the vestibule door, intending to fill my teacup in the kitchen. The vestibule is full. The three small wooden carts we use for storage and counter space are crammed in there tightly. There’s no room to pass. I peek through the upturned chair legs of our two kitchen chairs. Inside the kitchen, the stove is pulled away from the wall, the square table is full with items, most of which I don’t recognize, and L. is vigorously mopping the floor.
Ordinarily, one can stand in place in the center of the kitchen and reach almost every corner with the mop without actually moving. There’s a lot more movement going on inside the kitchen than I’d expect.
“Is there….Um, can I?” I hold up my mug.
“I’m cleaning.”
“Is it really necessary to take all the furniture out of the kitchen to…?”
“If you’re going to do something, you might as well do it thoroughly.” He doesn’t look up from his work. I go back to my chair. After a short while he reaches out from behind the blockade waving the stripped cotton rug that we keep in front of the sink.
“Do you think Gena [at the laundromat] takes rugs? She’s open Sunday mornings right? The rug is filthy.”
“I don’t know.” I’m in the thick of working out just how to frame an idea and my interest in rugs, dirty or not, is at an all-time low. “Maybe it’s not really that dirty.”
“Oh, it’s dirty. Look at it!”
I look up from my computer and over my shoulder. “You’re right, it’s dirty.”
“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”
“Do you want me to call Gena?”
“No.” Pause. “I mean what’s the point in cleaning the whole kitchen—“
“Look, I can take care of the rug tomorrow.”
“No. It’s fine.” My lack of commitment to this project has already been noted and my offer comes too late.
On the other side of the doorway from the chair, is the sofa. If you want to pass from the vestibule to the door to the bedroom and bathroom, or towards the front of the apartment to the door that leads outside, you need to pass in front of the couch, closely enough to step on the feet of whoever is sitting there.
I am feeling safe in my chair as L. shifts his focus from the kitchen to the bathroom. He clips my elbow as he passes, so I shift closer to the fireplace. Doors open and close.
“Maybe you shouldn’t push yourself today” I say. “You weren’t feeling so great yesterday.”
He knows very well what this actually means and, unfortunately, is not deterred.
A bucket is transported; return trip; mop; return trip; a cleaner; return; a different cleaner. Pause.
“Your vinegar isn’t working on the toilet, do we have bleach?”
We might but he knows I prefer we didn’t use it. It gives me a headache and there are no windows to open in the bathroom.
“Fine. It’s just going to stay yellow then” He says. “Without the bleach.”
I don’t mention that it’s never actually been white and try to concentrate on the email I’m writing.
“Well, I’ll just make sure everything else is clean I guess.”
Back to the bathroom; out again.
“Do we have clothespins?”
“Under the kitchen sink.”
“Where?” he peeks his head out from the kitchen and turn in my chair and I point.
“Where? Oh.”
Clothespins; bathroom; return trip; something else; bathroom again.
There is a crash from the bathroom, a shattering of glass. I do by best to feign concern.
“Are you okay? Here, let me get the broom.”
I get up, grab the broom and dustpan from the now-cleared vestibule, and hand it to him through the narrow opening of the bathroom door. I peek in and the glass jar that usually sits on the shelf below the mirror is in pieces and the comb, scissors, tweezers, chopsticks, hair clips and assorted other items are scattered on the floor.
Later in the evening, I’ll find this collection, inexplicably, in the bidet.
Finally, kitchen cleaned, bathroom cleaned, hair trimmed, beard trimmed, showered and dressed in something besides sweats (not sure why), my companion claims the sofa. It’s four in that afternoon by now and I, feeling somewhat frazzled, start my soup. A hot shower calms me as the soup cooks. I manage to finish the proposal I was writing. It took nearly 6 hours (on top of the work already done), but it’s finished.
It isn’t necessarily the confinement to the apartment that I find unsettling, though at other times of my life, “staying home” has meant having an upstairs and a downstairs and a front yard and a backyard to roam around in. It’s more the fact that I find, and have always found, that silence and solitude are really quite lovely companions. I can’t hear my muses over other people’s chatter, for one thing. When my children were young and I worked at home, I protected my studio with: “You may knock on the door only if someone is bleeding, and by bleeding, I mean heavy, emergency-room style bleeding. Otherwise you know where the band-aids are.”
My relationships, as anyone who’s ever lived with me will attest to, are so much more pleasant when I can achieve a certain degree of solitude and silence in counterbalance to an enthusiastic togetherness.
So at the end of this experimental day of 24-hour togetherness, I am washing dishes after dinner and thinking that we’re only halfway there, can we make it? We found a quieter rhythm after the cleaning subsided, danced a few minutes to the theme song at the end of a movie. Maybe it’ll be okay.
From the narrow kitchen window I can see that it’s raining, and I can see the portico of the church; and in the yellow light of the lamps I see my young Ghanian friend, thin and wiry; looking at his phone under shelter on the church steps. I don’t call out to him. I think he’s taking to someone. I know he’s come out because in his apartment there’s no signal through the stone walls; no internet. No contact with the outside world. I wonder if he will come through this period of solitude as a monk might; or if he’ll suffer, as he has before, alone on a strange continent.
The music has stopped and we’re all in the chairs we’ve found, waiting for it to begin again.
For the first time since the lockdown began, I actually stay home, inside, all day. I make us crepes for breakfast and then settle into the chair by the fireplace. There’s no fire, and there won’t be, but I can smell smoke every time the wind blows the smoke from someone else’s fire down our chimney. There’s been no fire since our chimney caught fire last year. Though not actually very dangerous—our buildings aren’t built of flammable materials and the fire didn’t escape the chimney—the episode was pretty terrifying and illuminated the fact that a chimney that zigzags it’s way to the roof is not a healthy chimney, even if it’s been like that for 40 years since the palazzo was hastily rebuilt after the earthquake. I’d been convinced it was poisoning us by smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning for some time and am not especially disappointed not to have a blaze going.
I brought my computer home last night and some work to do: a proposal to write, some emails, a new artist statement. L. has his computer and some work to do too. I envision a day of quiet camaraderie, a pot of soup on the stove, a cup of tea nearby; trading places… do you want the chair now and I’ll take the sofa? Should we bake something? But my companion has decided that “we” need to clean. I beg off, citing the above-mentioned work.
The chair I’m in just fits between the fireplace and the door to a vestibule from which you can turn immediately to the left and be in a small windowless storage room, or immediately to the right and find the small kitchen. After about an hour of working, I swing my legs over the side of the chair and get up, opening the vestibule door, intending to fill my teacup in the kitchen. The vestibule is full. The three small wooden carts we use for storage and counter space are crammed in there tightly. There’s no room to pass. I peek through the upturned chair legs of our two kitchen chairs. Inside the kitchen, the stove is pulled away from the wall, the square table is full with items, most of which I don’t recognize, and L. is vigorously mopping the floor.
Ordinarily, one can stand in place in the center of the kitchen and reach almost every corner with the mop without actually moving. There’s a lot more movement going on inside the kitchen than I’d expect.
“Is there….Um, can I?” I hold up my mug.
“I’m cleaning.”
“Is it really necessary to take all the furniture out of the kitchen to…?”
“If you’re going to do something, you might as well do it thoroughly.” He doesn’t look up from his work. I go back to my chair. After a short while he reaches out from behind the blockade waving the stripped cotton rug that we keep in front of the sink.
“Do you think Gena [at the laundromat] takes rugs? She’s open Sunday mornings right? The rug is filthy.”
“I don’t know.” I’m in the thick of working out just how to frame an idea and my interest in rugs, dirty or not, is at an all-time low. “Maybe it’s not really that dirty.”
“Oh, it’s dirty. Look at it!”
I look up from my computer and over my shoulder. “You’re right, it’s dirty.”
“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”
“Do you want me to call Gena?”
“No.” Pause. “I mean what’s the point in cleaning the whole kitchen—“
“Look, I can take care of the rug tomorrow.”
“No. It’s fine.” My lack of commitment to this project has already been noted and my offer comes too late.
On the other side of the doorway from the chair, is the sofa. If you want to pass from the vestibule to the door to the bedroom and bathroom, or towards the front of the apartment to the door that leads outside, you need to pass in front of the couch, closely enough to step on the feet of whoever is sitting there.
I am feeling safe in my chair as L. shifts his focus from the kitchen to the bathroom. He clips my elbow as he passes, so I shift closer to the fireplace. Doors open and close.
“Maybe you shouldn’t push yourself today” I say. “You weren’t feeling so great yesterday.”
He knows very well what this actually means and, unfortunately, is not deterred.
A bucket is transported; return trip; mop; return trip; a cleaner; return; a different cleaner. Pause.
“Your vinegar isn’t working on the toilet, do we have bleach?”
We might but he knows I prefer we didn’t use it. It gives me a headache and there are no windows to open in the bathroom.
“Fine. It’s just going to stay yellow then” He says. “Without the bleach.”
I don’t mention that it’s never actually been white and try to concentrate on the email I’m writing.
“Well, I’ll just make sure everything else is clean I guess.”
Back to the bathroom; out again.
“Do we have clothespins?”
“Under the kitchen sink.”
“Where?” he peeks his head out from the kitchen and turn in my chair and I point.
“Where? Oh.”
Clothespins; bathroom; return trip; something else; bathroom again.
There is a crash from the bathroom, a shattering of glass. I do by best to feign concern.
“Are you okay? Here, let me get the broom.”
I get up, grab the broom and dustpan from the now-cleared vestibule, and hand it to him through the narrow opening of the bathroom door. I peek in and the glass jar that usually sits on the shelf below the mirror is in pieces and the comb, scissors, tweezers, chopsticks, hair clips and assorted other items are scattered on the floor.
Later in the evening, I’ll find this collection, inexplicably, in the bidet.
Finally, kitchen cleaned, bathroom cleaned, hair trimmed, beard trimmed, showered and dressed in something besides sweats (not sure why), my companion claims the sofa. It’s four in that afternoon by now and I, feeling somewhat frazzled, start my soup. A hot shower calms me as the soup cooks. I manage to finish the proposal I was writing. It took nearly 6 hours (on top of the work already done), but it’s finished.
It isn’t necessarily the confinement to the apartment that I find unsettling, though at other times of my life, “staying home” has meant having an upstairs and a downstairs and a front yard and a backyard to roam around in. It’s more the fact that I find, and have always found, that silence and solitude are really quite lovely companions. I can’t hear my muses over other people’s chatter, for one thing. When my children were young and I worked at home, I protected my studio with: “You may knock on the door only if someone is bleeding, and by bleeding, I mean heavy, emergency-room style bleeding. Otherwise you know where the band-aids are.”
My relationships, as anyone who’s ever lived with me will attest to, are so much more pleasant when I can achieve a certain degree of solitude and silence in counterbalance to an enthusiastic togetherness.
So at the end of this experimental day of 24-hour togetherness, I am washing dishes after dinner and thinking that we’re only halfway there, can we make it? We found a quieter rhythm after the cleaning subsided, danced a few minutes to the theme song at the end of a movie. Maybe it’ll be okay.
From the narrow kitchen window I can see that it’s raining, and I can see the portico of the church; and in the yellow light of the lamps I see my young Ghanian friend, thin and wiry; looking at his phone under shelter on the church steps. I don’t call out to him. I think he’s taking to someone. I know he’s come out because in his apartment there’s no signal through the stone walls; no internet. No contact with the outside world. I wonder if he will come through this period of solitude as a monk might; or if he’ll suffer, as he has before, alone on a strange continent.
The music has stopped and we’re all in the chairs we’ve found, waiting for it to begin again.
March 23, Sundown birds
The sun disappears from the valley well before it actually goes down. My studio faces east and what I ever see of the sunset is maybe part of it’s reflection on the mountains opposite, or maybe red clouds in a rose-gold sky. There is a point every evening though, during the space between rose-gold and darkness, precisely at the moment of sunset, when the sky fills with birds. They swirl and caw and move in huge clouds from the flat of the valley up to the dark hills and out again and back... swooping, stirring, singing. Then, when it’s nearly dark, the sky suddenly empties.
Why do they do that?
Where do they go when they leave the sky?
Why at the hour of sunset precisely?
There’s likely a reason, neat and scientific. Or there is a story, tangled and poignant. I’ve asked around. Mostly no one knows. I’m disappointed at the lack of wonder and curiosity.
This morning there was the usual accumulation of news, things that multiplied or divided in the night. I start with “La Prima Cosa Bella” (The first beautiful thing), a column at the top of La Repubblica’s home page that always looks for a little light in the dark situations described below it. G. starts with a report that more people are dying with this than they say. More people are infected than they can count. There are a lot of questions. Mostly no one knows.
His mother calls. There’s the first case in the family: a cousin, a doctor who lives up north. He’s been hospitalized; intubated. His wife isn’t answering the phone and his son is too young to call. Everyone is waiting.
I arrive at the studio and call the cat who still doesn’t come. I call anyway, out the front windows too. I’d already gone calling down a narrow lane across the street this morning, but all that came was a small black dog who just wanted a scratch behind the ears.
I work without taking my usual afternoon nap, no 20 minutes of stillness today. I forget to. I’m absorbed. Light fades. I only hear it’s sundown from the birds.
The sun disappears from the valley well before it actually goes down. My studio faces east and what I ever see of the sunset is maybe part of it’s reflection on the mountains opposite, or maybe red clouds in a rose-gold sky. There is a point every evening though, during the space between rose-gold and darkness, precisely at the moment of sunset, when the sky fills with birds. They swirl and caw and move in huge clouds from the flat of the valley up to the dark hills and out again and back... swooping, stirring, singing. Then, when it’s nearly dark, the sky suddenly empties.
Why do they do that?
Where do they go when they leave the sky?
Why at the hour of sunset precisely?
There’s likely a reason, neat and scientific. Or there is a story, tangled and poignant. I’ve asked around. Mostly no one knows. I’m disappointed at the lack of wonder and curiosity.
This morning there was the usual accumulation of news, things that multiplied or divided in the night. I start with “La Prima Cosa Bella” (The first beautiful thing), a column at the top of La Repubblica’s home page that always looks for a little light in the dark situations described below it. G. starts with a report that more people are dying with this than they say. More people are infected than they can count. There are a lot of questions. Mostly no one knows.
His mother calls. There’s the first case in the family: a cousin, a doctor who lives up north. He’s been hospitalized; intubated. His wife isn’t answering the phone and his son is too young to call. Everyone is waiting.
I arrive at the studio and call the cat who still doesn’t come. I call anyway, out the front windows too. I’d already gone calling down a narrow lane across the street this morning, but all that came was a small black dog who just wanted a scratch behind the ears.
I work without taking my usual afternoon nap, no 20 minutes of stillness today. I forget to. I’m absorbed. Light fades. I only hear it’s sundown from the birds.
March 24, An outing
It’s my turn to go to the grocery store again. It shouldn’t be. After the last fiasco in which I not only left the house without a mask, I also stopped to drop a book off to someone and then proceeded to fare una chiacchiera with the shopkeeper (who was, in my defense, wearing a mask), it was agreed that I couldn’t be trusted with either the shopping or the lives of the people of our community. I get his point—we’re doing this to keep others safe, even more than for our own sakes, and who knows if I’m carrying this disease or not? I didn’t cough or touch my face (or anyone’s face) or shake hands, and I washed my hands both coming and going. But the mask… a crucial error. I’m learning.
L. has a cough today though, we need things, and, being one of the few genuinely altruistic people I know, he’s temporarily stepped down from his position as Official House Shopper, entrusting me with the job.
I don’t repeat my past mistakes. I take the hardware store dust mask, by all accounts useless against viral droplets but offering at least more protection than not wearing a mask, and proceed to the supermarket a few blocks from our studio.
There are three masked people ahead of me, one in their car that's parked up by the door. They’re only letting three in at a time. I wait. I look around. Is that a snowflake? I watch through the windows and wonder what’s taking so long. I see a woman I know. I know what she’s doing in there, still in the first aisle, just standing still, looking. Looking at every single item on every shelf. She has a three-year-old-grandaughter, the granddaughter’s parents and her husband at home. It’s not a big house. She’s still in there when my turn comes. I don’t blame her.
It’s Giovanni’s turn but he motions for me to go. “I’m sitting in my car, you go.” He says. It’s cold. I blow him a kiss, put my mask over my face, and go in.
Entering the store, I begin to panic slightly. The mask smells like the inside of the garden shed it came from.
Am I breathing mold spores? Dust mites? Did I shake out the spiders? Why it is itchy?
Suddenly, I can’t see anything.
Mask on, warm breath, cold glasses.
I’ve already touched the handle of the plastic cart.
Why did I touch the cart? Now I can’t touch my mask to adjust it or my glasses to clean them. I take the risk and touch my glasses once with a non-contaminated finger, just to pull them down my nose a bit so I can see over them. Which isn’t helpful, given the degree of my nearsightedness, but it’s a kind of not-seeing I’m familiar with while the foggy not-seeing was feeling claustrophobic.
I walk down the first aisle and realize something: maybe that woman with the three-year-old at home wasn’t trying to get out of the house exactly, maybe she was feeling what I’m feeling now: oooohhhh… look! I’m in a kind of daze, as if I’ve never seen so many edible, drinkable, brightly colored things all at once in one place so neatly arranged, all facing front, and colorfully labeled with such interesting information.
It takes longer than I thought, even though I brought a list.
The only thing they don’t have are carrots.
It’s my turn to go to the grocery store again. It shouldn’t be. After the last fiasco in which I not only left the house without a mask, I also stopped to drop a book off to someone and then proceeded to fare una chiacchiera with the shopkeeper (who was, in my defense, wearing a mask), it was agreed that I couldn’t be trusted with either the shopping or the lives of the people of our community. I get his point—we’re doing this to keep others safe, even more than for our own sakes, and who knows if I’m carrying this disease or not? I didn’t cough or touch my face (or anyone’s face) or shake hands, and I washed my hands both coming and going. But the mask… a crucial error. I’m learning.
L. has a cough today though, we need things, and, being one of the few genuinely altruistic people I know, he’s temporarily stepped down from his position as Official House Shopper, entrusting me with the job.
I don’t repeat my past mistakes. I take the hardware store dust mask, by all accounts useless against viral droplets but offering at least more protection than not wearing a mask, and proceed to the supermarket a few blocks from our studio.
There are three masked people ahead of me, one in their car that's parked up by the door. They’re only letting three in at a time. I wait. I look around. Is that a snowflake? I watch through the windows and wonder what’s taking so long. I see a woman I know. I know what she’s doing in there, still in the first aisle, just standing still, looking. Looking at every single item on every shelf. She has a three-year-old-grandaughter, the granddaughter’s parents and her husband at home. It’s not a big house. She’s still in there when my turn comes. I don’t blame her.
It’s Giovanni’s turn but he motions for me to go. “I’m sitting in my car, you go.” He says. It’s cold. I blow him a kiss, put my mask over my face, and go in.
Entering the store, I begin to panic slightly. The mask smells like the inside of the garden shed it came from.
Am I breathing mold spores? Dust mites? Did I shake out the spiders? Why it is itchy?
Suddenly, I can’t see anything.
Mask on, warm breath, cold glasses.
I’ve already touched the handle of the plastic cart.
Why did I touch the cart? Now I can’t touch my mask to adjust it or my glasses to clean them. I take the risk and touch my glasses once with a non-contaminated finger, just to pull them down my nose a bit so I can see over them. Which isn’t helpful, given the degree of my nearsightedness, but it’s a kind of not-seeing I’m familiar with while the foggy not-seeing was feeling claustrophobic.
I walk down the first aisle and realize something: maybe that woman with the three-year-old at home wasn’t trying to get out of the house exactly, maybe she was feeling what I’m feeling now: oooohhhh… look! I’m in a kind of daze, as if I’ve never seen so many edible, drinkable, brightly colored things all at once in one place so neatly arranged, all facing front, and colorfully labeled with such interesting information.
It takes longer than I thought, even though I brought a list.
The only thing they don’t have are carrots.
March 25, Breaking boxes
We wake to grey skies and a light snowfall mixed with rain. The precipitation is welcome, even if it’s cold. The warm dry winter we’ve had has been concerning. I am grateful to the grey snowy day most especially because it’s perfect weather for staying inside, putting something in the oven and something else on the stovetop.
I will venture out just for a moment though.
Yesterday I went to the supermarket to stock up on some packaged items, but I didn’t get vegetables. I’m used to doing the major part of my shopping at one of two open air markets that happen each week, one in my town on Fridays, the other on Saturdays in the next town over. Both have been closed for weeks.
I’ve missed the baskets of the freshest local vegetables, everything in season. I’ve missed the buckets of olives, the bunches of dried wild oregano, the trays of salt cod, the hanging dried sausages; bins of dried beans. I’ve missed Maria and the fresh eggs from her chickens; her small jars of homemade “sott’olio” (eggplant or zucchini or artichokes cooked first in vinegar and then preserved under olive oil). I’ve missed suave Antonio who feeds me slices of cheese off his sharp knife, “You’re going to like this one cara.” Or cutting yet another slice, “Perhaps this one today instead? Something sweet and delicate for a woman so sweet and delicate as you.”
I’ve missed Paulina, the old farmer with strong brown hands, calf length skirts and tattered blue apron, who likes to “rompere le scatole” (break the boxes, or, bust my ass). When I first arrived here, she was ruthless. She sensed an easy mark in my American accent and stumbling phrases. If I wanted half a kilo of broccoli rabe, she’d give me a kilo and charge me for two. But for some reason I felt compelled to support her. We finally became friends a week after the day she charged me 6 euros for three small beets.
“May-leenda, COME here!” she shouted, as usual from across the piazza, “WHAT DO YOU WANT TODAY?”
I braced myself and went over. I could have ignored her, but I was determined not to be cowed by this hawk-eyed granny in a headscarf, not after last week’s beet incident. Besides, she had the freshest and most local stuff. Escarole, green onions, some new potatoes, everything carefully weighed on a handheld brass scale. Then she hit me with the price.
“No.” I said, “That’s not right.
She looked up at me.
“WHADDYA MEAN THAT’S NOT RIGHT?”
“That’s a crazy price.”
“ARE YOU TRYING TO ROBE ME? IT’S A GOOD PRICE!”
“It’s too much.”
Then she said something, a lot of things in fact, all together in a long tirade, that I didn’t understand. But I got the gist.
“Fine.” I started to walk away.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING? WHAT--YOU DON’T WANT THIS STUFF NOW?”
“You’re not being fair.”
Another tirade erupted and at that point I lost my patience. I interrupted her.
“IT’S NOT RIGHT! You think you can mess with me because I’m not from here? I’M COMING TO YOU FOR OVER A YEAR! I’M A GOOD CUSTOMER. BUT YOU ALWAYS BREAK MY BOXES. BASTA!”
My heart was beating fast and I was feeling embarrassed, having just yelled at an old lady in my improved but still broken Italian. People were looking. I started to walk away.
“OK, you know what?” She came after me with the bag full of produce and pushed it towards me. “Ok, take it. 4 euros.” I looked down at her and saw something I hadn’t seen before—she was smiling, eyes twinkling. I smiled back. We both laughed.
She was a lot easier to deal with after that.
There is no market, but there is Francesco. This morning I venture out to the shop he recently took over from the now-retired Pasquale, frutivendolo extraordinaire. Piled with crates of all manner of fruit and vegetable, plus local honey, cheeses and sausages from local produces, Pasquale’s was a part of my regular rounds during the week. He had recipe suggestions for everything.
Young Francesco does things a little differently. He’s organized and cleaned the shop, for one thing, and added in things like pasta and milk. We’re friends with his family. I’d been happy to support him but it’s been awhile since I’ve gone there. It’s because of cheese. Francesco, just before Christmas, sold me a terrible piece of cheese. It hadn’t gone off, and wasn’t some strange unpalatable variety, it was just a dramatically sub-par version of a cheese that is native to these parts and should have by rights been excellent. I had, in fact, been assured that it was a) local and b) excellent. In was in fact neither. L. tried to reason with me when he realized that I was about to march back over to Francesco’s and break his boxes. He pointed out the young lad’s inexperience. I pointed out that he lied to me. He suggested it might be ignorance, I suggested it might be arrogance. Trying desperately to avoid a scene, L. convinced me to let it go. I didn’t have to shop there anymore, okay? It wasn’t the end of the world.
Knowing that in small towns like these some boats are better left un-rocked, I begrudgingly agreed.
But there’s no excuse for bad cheese.
I arrive at the fruit and vegetable shop this morning. These are troubled times. Small businesses are struggling, most are closed; the economy is at a halt. Even in ordinary times though, people deserve a second chance. The produce isn’t as abundant today as it might normally be, but Francesco wins me over with a boyish smile, three long-stemmed early artichokes and a large perfect head of radicchio. He doesn’t know he’s been forgiven (or even that he needed to be) and it’s just as well.
We wake to grey skies and a light snowfall mixed with rain. The precipitation is welcome, even if it’s cold. The warm dry winter we’ve had has been concerning. I am grateful to the grey snowy day most especially because it’s perfect weather for staying inside, putting something in the oven and something else on the stovetop.
I will venture out just for a moment though.
Yesterday I went to the supermarket to stock up on some packaged items, but I didn’t get vegetables. I’m used to doing the major part of my shopping at one of two open air markets that happen each week, one in my town on Fridays, the other on Saturdays in the next town over. Both have been closed for weeks.
I’ve missed the baskets of the freshest local vegetables, everything in season. I’ve missed the buckets of olives, the bunches of dried wild oregano, the trays of salt cod, the hanging dried sausages; bins of dried beans. I’ve missed Maria and the fresh eggs from her chickens; her small jars of homemade “sott’olio” (eggplant or zucchini or artichokes cooked first in vinegar and then preserved under olive oil). I’ve missed suave Antonio who feeds me slices of cheese off his sharp knife, “You’re going to like this one cara.” Or cutting yet another slice, “Perhaps this one today instead? Something sweet and delicate for a woman so sweet and delicate as you.”
I’ve missed Paulina, the old farmer with strong brown hands, calf length skirts and tattered blue apron, who likes to “rompere le scatole” (break the boxes, or, bust my ass). When I first arrived here, she was ruthless. She sensed an easy mark in my American accent and stumbling phrases. If I wanted half a kilo of broccoli rabe, she’d give me a kilo and charge me for two. But for some reason I felt compelled to support her. We finally became friends a week after the day she charged me 6 euros for three small beets.
“May-leenda, COME here!” she shouted, as usual from across the piazza, “WHAT DO YOU WANT TODAY?”
I braced myself and went over. I could have ignored her, but I was determined not to be cowed by this hawk-eyed granny in a headscarf, not after last week’s beet incident. Besides, she had the freshest and most local stuff. Escarole, green onions, some new potatoes, everything carefully weighed on a handheld brass scale. Then she hit me with the price.
“No.” I said, “That’s not right.
She looked up at me.
“WHADDYA MEAN THAT’S NOT RIGHT?”
“That’s a crazy price.”
“ARE YOU TRYING TO ROBE ME? IT’S A GOOD PRICE!”
“It’s too much.”
Then she said something, a lot of things in fact, all together in a long tirade, that I didn’t understand. But I got the gist.
“Fine.” I started to walk away.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING? WHAT--YOU DON’T WANT THIS STUFF NOW?”
“You’re not being fair.”
Another tirade erupted and at that point I lost my patience. I interrupted her.
“IT’S NOT RIGHT! You think you can mess with me because I’m not from here? I’M COMING TO YOU FOR OVER A YEAR! I’M A GOOD CUSTOMER. BUT YOU ALWAYS BREAK MY BOXES. BASTA!”
My heart was beating fast and I was feeling embarrassed, having just yelled at an old lady in my improved but still broken Italian. People were looking. I started to walk away.
“OK, you know what?” She came after me with the bag full of produce and pushed it towards me. “Ok, take it. 4 euros.” I looked down at her and saw something I hadn’t seen before—she was smiling, eyes twinkling. I smiled back. We both laughed.
She was a lot easier to deal with after that.
There is no market, but there is Francesco. This morning I venture out to the shop he recently took over from the now-retired Pasquale, frutivendolo extraordinaire. Piled with crates of all manner of fruit and vegetable, plus local honey, cheeses and sausages from local produces, Pasquale’s was a part of my regular rounds during the week. He had recipe suggestions for everything.
Young Francesco does things a little differently. He’s organized and cleaned the shop, for one thing, and added in things like pasta and milk. We’re friends with his family. I’d been happy to support him but it’s been awhile since I’ve gone there. It’s because of cheese. Francesco, just before Christmas, sold me a terrible piece of cheese. It hadn’t gone off, and wasn’t some strange unpalatable variety, it was just a dramatically sub-par version of a cheese that is native to these parts and should have by rights been excellent. I had, in fact, been assured that it was a) local and b) excellent. In was in fact neither. L. tried to reason with me when he realized that I was about to march back over to Francesco’s and break his boxes. He pointed out the young lad’s inexperience. I pointed out that he lied to me. He suggested it might be ignorance, I suggested it might be arrogance. Trying desperately to avoid a scene, L. convinced me to let it go. I didn’t have to shop there anymore, okay? It wasn’t the end of the world.
Knowing that in small towns like these some boats are better left un-rocked, I begrudgingly agreed.
But there’s no excuse for bad cheese.
I arrive at the fruit and vegetable shop this morning. These are troubled times. Small businesses are struggling, most are closed; the economy is at a halt. Even in ordinary times though, people deserve a second chance. The produce isn’t as abundant today as it might normally be, but Francesco wins me over with a boyish smile, three long-stemmed early artichokes and a large perfect head of radicchio. He doesn’t know he’s been forgiven (or even that he needed to be) and it’s just as well.
March 26, Tiny miracles
A couple days ago, we got the newest set of even more strident directives issued by the prime minister in regards to further closures and restrictions nationwide, and, in sharp contrast to any and all previous communication issued by the Italian government on any topic, there is what could cautiously be referred to as a small degree of clarity.
One point in particular emerges: certain professionals (including architects), who have private studios, may in fact go to work.
“See?? Now that makes sense.”
L. had been stopped in the street a week ago by the carabinieri, who, in their zeal to interpret and implement a series of imprecise directives, had instructed him to work from home or face a ticket and/or jail the next time they say him.
We’ve been having the same conversation every day since about whether or not it’s reckless to go outside, potentially infecting people or getting infected. Or how likely/unlikely it is that he or I will be caught and fined. I explain that I believe it’s important to have discernment in situations like these. I outline the fact that we’re not parading around the piazza kissing people, but going alone to the studio or, for me, up in the woods where the likelihood of coming within 2 meters of anyone, accidentally or on purpose, is slim to none.
You’re really an individualist, he ‘s said. As if this is a defect of character.
Maybe, I’ve said, as if this wasn’t a defect of character, particularly in times of pandemic. I prefer to frame it as the capacity to think for myself and disregard things that make no sense.
We don’t have the conversation today. Today he is visibly relieved. The rules are clear. He’s within the law.
“It doesn’t say anything about artists though… “
“It says independent professional though, right? How else would you describe me?”
He shrugs.
“But really, your studio doesn’t technically exist,” he says looking over the document again, “They could get you.”
But he knows I don’t care.
I don’t care.” I say anyway.
“And the fine is now 4000 euros instead of 400 if they find you on the street without a reason.”
There is a mutual exchange of patience being practiced here and both of us refrain from continuing the conversation. He knows I'm impossible sometimes and I know he's showing me he cares.
Later, he wanders up to my studio from his studio below, carrying a piece of paper.
“You can feed the cat,” he says, handing the paper to me.
Caught in the midst of my work, I have no idea what he’s talking about. Did our missing cat finally come back?? Is there someone else’s cat that needs feeding? Has he found a cat?
“You can feed the cat,” he says again, pointing to the paper.
He looks at me, eyebrows raised, willing me to read his mind and say what must be said. I’m still not following.
“Look-- It’s one of the reasons you can go out. To take care of an animal.”
“But—“ I start. Then I stop.
A small and slightly absurd miracle has just occurred.
One might expect, given certain stereotypes about Italians (particularly southerners) that this man would be perfectly at ease finding loopholes, evading regulations, cracking but not necessarily breaking the law; or just impassively disregarding the law completely if it was really that inconvenient. He isn’t at ease though. He’s the black sheep, the possibly switched-at-birth sibling who would probably feel more at home in a place like, say, Switzerland or Germany where people know how form a line or follow instructions and laws carry with them the expectation of respect.
I can see he’s not entirely comfortable with the information he’s just shared with me; with the document he’s printed out for me to sign which clearly states that I must travel between my home address and this studio address daily to feed an animal. He might be more at ease if the cat comes back. Or if the cat were a pig instead, or a pair of goats, as was more likely intended by the ambiguous wording of the rule.
He is, however, plainly satisfied to have found a way to protect me and keep me safe. I am no longer a renegade.
A couple days ago, we got the newest set of even more strident directives issued by the prime minister in regards to further closures and restrictions nationwide, and, in sharp contrast to any and all previous communication issued by the Italian government on any topic, there is what could cautiously be referred to as a small degree of clarity.
One point in particular emerges: certain professionals (including architects), who have private studios, may in fact go to work.
“See?? Now that makes sense.”
L. had been stopped in the street a week ago by the carabinieri, who, in their zeal to interpret and implement a series of imprecise directives, had instructed him to work from home or face a ticket and/or jail the next time they say him.
We’ve been having the same conversation every day since about whether or not it’s reckless to go outside, potentially infecting people or getting infected. Or how likely/unlikely it is that he or I will be caught and fined. I explain that I believe it’s important to have discernment in situations like these. I outline the fact that we’re not parading around the piazza kissing people, but going alone to the studio or, for me, up in the woods where the likelihood of coming within 2 meters of anyone, accidentally or on purpose, is slim to none.
You’re really an individualist, he ‘s said. As if this is a defect of character.
Maybe, I’ve said, as if this wasn’t a defect of character, particularly in times of pandemic. I prefer to frame it as the capacity to think for myself and disregard things that make no sense.
We don’t have the conversation today. Today he is visibly relieved. The rules are clear. He’s within the law.
“It doesn’t say anything about artists though… “
“It says independent professional though, right? How else would you describe me?”
He shrugs.
“But really, your studio doesn’t technically exist,” he says looking over the document again, “They could get you.”
But he knows I don’t care.
I don’t care.” I say anyway.
“And the fine is now 4000 euros instead of 400 if they find you on the street without a reason.”
There is a mutual exchange of patience being practiced here and both of us refrain from continuing the conversation. He knows I'm impossible sometimes and I know he's showing me he cares.
Later, he wanders up to my studio from his studio below, carrying a piece of paper.
“You can feed the cat,” he says, handing the paper to me.
Caught in the midst of my work, I have no idea what he’s talking about. Did our missing cat finally come back?? Is there someone else’s cat that needs feeding? Has he found a cat?
“You can feed the cat,” he says again, pointing to the paper.
He looks at me, eyebrows raised, willing me to read his mind and say what must be said. I’m still not following.
“Look-- It’s one of the reasons you can go out. To take care of an animal.”
“But—“ I start. Then I stop.
A small and slightly absurd miracle has just occurred.
One might expect, given certain stereotypes about Italians (particularly southerners) that this man would be perfectly at ease finding loopholes, evading regulations, cracking but not necessarily breaking the law; or just impassively disregarding the law completely if it was really that inconvenient. He isn’t at ease though. He’s the black sheep, the possibly switched-at-birth sibling who would probably feel more at home in a place like, say, Switzerland or Germany where people know how form a line or follow instructions and laws carry with them the expectation of respect.
I can see he’s not entirely comfortable with the information he’s just shared with me; with the document he’s printed out for me to sign which clearly states that I must travel between my home address and this studio address daily to feed an animal. He might be more at ease if the cat comes back. Or if the cat were a pig instead, or a pair of goats, as was more likely intended by the ambiguous wording of the rule.
He is, however, plainly satisfied to have found a way to protect me and keep me safe. I am no longer a renegade.
March 27, Where my feet are
My brother is China.
When this all started in China, it started with my brother, his wife and their two boys.
I am Italy. I share Italy with Bino, my youngest brother’s partner’s father. He’s been Italy much longer than me.
Our youngest brother is New York City. He, his partner and their daughter, the youngest and brightest of the clan, are New York City, though sometimes we say Brooklyn. Our parents are Long Island.
My oldest son is airplanes, sometimes Chicago.
My youngest son is mostly himself, riding this out writing, in an apartment with his wife (making art), with a view of the sea, not too far from me but too far to see.
When try to stay present, I am often in the present in four time zones. I try to be where my feet are, but it isn’t always easy.
When this wave first started to ripple outwards, my brother and his family were staying in Thailand instead of China, but China is their life and livelihood and has been for nearly two decades. Yet, even though so close to me it all seemed quite far away when the chaos erupted. It was my brother, it was devastating. I felt his pain as he confronted the frustration of powerlessness, the financial blows, and the confusion. Yet there was still something somewhat theoretical about it all. Surely they’d figure it out, “they” being whomever figures things like this out.
I saw the wave advancing but it wasn’t quite real until it hit me; until, underwater, everything changed.
The strength and sensitivity of the web that connects us was suddenly stronger for the empathy, the shared experience.
Coming up for air in a new uncertain world, I turn to watch as the wave advances, as ripples move outwards.
I’m not unfamiliar with navigating the unknown. I’ve been practicing for some time, as I’ve made choices and taken risks deliberately, or have been presented with challenges I couldn’t control. I’ve learned that when the path seems most treacherous is the time to keep your attention where your feet are. Looking up brings only vertigo and panic as the narrow rocky path inevitably climbs almost straight up into the fog in front of you and drops off beside you into a cavern too deep to measure. No, there is never enough room to turn around. Breathe. Feet.
Overnight the Chinese boarder is closed indefinitely to foreign nationals-- my brother and his family, having been trying to figure out what would be best, are still in Thailand. It's now too late to try and go home.
Overnight, we are no longer “nearly there.” New cases go up instead of down for the first time in four days. Campania extends the quarantine an additional two weeks; the rest of Italy will likely follow suit.
Overnight NYC is an epicenter. My youngest brother, the epicenter, hangs a swing from the rafters of their small loft apartment.
Blurry on the phone, my niece is swinging. I am where her feet reach toward the ceiling. I am where my feet are, where she squeals with laughter.
My brother is China.
When this all started in China, it started with my brother, his wife and their two boys.
I am Italy. I share Italy with Bino, my youngest brother’s partner’s father. He’s been Italy much longer than me.
Our youngest brother is New York City. He, his partner and their daughter, the youngest and brightest of the clan, are New York City, though sometimes we say Brooklyn. Our parents are Long Island.
My oldest son is airplanes, sometimes Chicago.
My youngest son is mostly himself, riding this out writing, in an apartment with his wife (making art), with a view of the sea, not too far from me but too far to see.
When try to stay present, I am often in the present in four time zones. I try to be where my feet are, but it isn’t always easy.
When this wave first started to ripple outwards, my brother and his family were staying in Thailand instead of China, but China is their life and livelihood and has been for nearly two decades. Yet, even though so close to me it all seemed quite far away when the chaos erupted. It was my brother, it was devastating. I felt his pain as he confronted the frustration of powerlessness, the financial blows, and the confusion. Yet there was still something somewhat theoretical about it all. Surely they’d figure it out, “they” being whomever figures things like this out.
I saw the wave advancing but it wasn’t quite real until it hit me; until, underwater, everything changed.
The strength and sensitivity of the web that connects us was suddenly stronger for the empathy, the shared experience.
Coming up for air in a new uncertain world, I turn to watch as the wave advances, as ripples move outwards.
I’m not unfamiliar with navigating the unknown. I’ve been practicing for some time, as I’ve made choices and taken risks deliberately, or have been presented with challenges I couldn’t control. I’ve learned that when the path seems most treacherous is the time to keep your attention where your feet are. Looking up brings only vertigo and panic as the narrow rocky path inevitably climbs almost straight up into the fog in front of you and drops off beside you into a cavern too deep to measure. No, there is never enough room to turn around. Breathe. Feet.
Overnight the Chinese boarder is closed indefinitely to foreign nationals-- my brother and his family, having been trying to figure out what would be best, are still in Thailand. It's now too late to try and go home.
Overnight, we are no longer “nearly there.” New cases go up instead of down for the first time in four days. Campania extends the quarantine an additional two weeks; the rest of Italy will likely follow suit.
Overnight NYC is an epicenter. My youngest brother, the epicenter, hangs a swing from the rafters of their small loft apartment.
Blurry on the phone, my niece is swinging. I am where her feet reach toward the ceiling. I am where my feet are, where she squeals with laughter.
March 29, The absence
The silence wakes me at 6:30am. I think, it must not be 6:30 yet.
It wakes me again at 8am and I think, no it can’t yet be eight. I stay awake in the dark room listening.
Finally, I get up and go into the living room where the morning sun, reflected off the buildings across from us in the piazza, brings brightness into the room through our large french doors.
It’s as if it’s snowed in the night and everything is covered by a hush, by white, except when I peer through the curtains, nothing is pristine like that, just lacking.
Is this Sunday? It must not be Sunday.
In Italian, when you want to say, “I miss you [or anything]”, you don’t say, “I miss you”, you say “mi manchi”: “from me you are absent” or perhaps, “from me you are missing ”. It’s one of the verbs that took me awhile to get right, wanting instead to use it like an English expression, as if the verb was all about what I am doing/feeling (I am missing…), and your absence is implied; when instead it is about you and, mostly, your absence. I notice that you aren’t here, and from your absence my longing is implied.
Missing from me today are the church bells.
Absent from the piazza is everyone who would have come to the 7am mass. Absent from our large french doors are a glimpse of the old bicycle that might normally lean there against the arched stone doorway, with sometimes a brown hat in the basket. Absent from the benches are four or three with hair combed, maybe a tie, all close together chatting. Still absent are shawl-covered shoulders waiting for the later mass, shiny shoes and a sparkly dress, or the high heels and fresh up-do. Absent is anyone who would have stopped into Annamaria’s bottega for a last-minute ingredient for Sundays’ lunch before she closed for the rest of the day to rest only ever a half-day a week. Yesterday, even with the church doors closed, the piazza seemed much like it always does on any given morning: just without the kisses. From us they are missing: the two kisses, the brief embrace; a hand resting on an arm.
Just last week the bells were still ringing every morning and every afternoon at 3. I’ve only now, this moment, noticed that this week they haven’t been. Has another restriction been added? Is the young priest ill? Or maybe he’s just given up. I wonder if everyone will celebrate mass at home with the Pope. Will he speak today again of this boat we’re rowing all together? Will it be of any comfort to anyone’s solitude to know that they are one in the boats-full of ones at sea behind closed doors? I send out some messages just to be sure.
Is this Sunday? It must not be Sunday.
We will be absent from the large table at mamma’s house today, from the sometimes quiet ritual (when we are just five) and sometimes lively ritual (when we are 6 or 12 or more) of sharing the largest meal of the week. From us will be lacking the ravioli or fusilli , the sugo di domenica; the brasato di vitello or corniglio al forno, the insalata verde. Missing from us will also be the ciambellone, though for this L. will make an excuse to go and get a large slice to bring home, knowing this is her excuse to see his face this once this week; her way of saying, I notice that you aren’t here.
The silence wakes me at 6:30am. I think, it must not be 6:30 yet.
It wakes me again at 8am and I think, no it can’t yet be eight. I stay awake in the dark room listening.
Finally, I get up and go into the living room where the morning sun, reflected off the buildings across from us in the piazza, brings brightness into the room through our large french doors.
It’s as if it’s snowed in the night and everything is covered by a hush, by white, except when I peer through the curtains, nothing is pristine like that, just lacking.
Is this Sunday? It must not be Sunday.
In Italian, when you want to say, “I miss you [or anything]”, you don’t say, “I miss you”, you say “mi manchi”: “from me you are absent” or perhaps, “from me you are missing ”. It’s one of the verbs that took me awhile to get right, wanting instead to use it like an English expression, as if the verb was all about what I am doing/feeling (I am missing…), and your absence is implied; when instead it is about you and, mostly, your absence. I notice that you aren’t here, and from your absence my longing is implied.
Missing from me today are the church bells.
Absent from the piazza is everyone who would have come to the 7am mass. Absent from our large french doors are a glimpse of the old bicycle that might normally lean there against the arched stone doorway, with sometimes a brown hat in the basket. Absent from the benches are four or three with hair combed, maybe a tie, all close together chatting. Still absent are shawl-covered shoulders waiting for the later mass, shiny shoes and a sparkly dress, or the high heels and fresh up-do. Absent is anyone who would have stopped into Annamaria’s bottega for a last-minute ingredient for Sundays’ lunch before she closed for the rest of the day to rest only ever a half-day a week. Yesterday, even with the church doors closed, the piazza seemed much like it always does on any given morning: just without the kisses. From us they are missing: the two kisses, the brief embrace; a hand resting on an arm.
Just last week the bells were still ringing every morning and every afternoon at 3. I’ve only now, this moment, noticed that this week they haven’t been. Has another restriction been added? Is the young priest ill? Or maybe he’s just given up. I wonder if everyone will celebrate mass at home with the Pope. Will he speak today again of this boat we’re rowing all together? Will it be of any comfort to anyone’s solitude to know that they are one in the boats-full of ones at sea behind closed doors? I send out some messages just to be sure.
Is this Sunday? It must not be Sunday.
We will be absent from the large table at mamma’s house today, from the sometimes quiet ritual (when we are just five) and sometimes lively ritual (when we are 6 or 12 or more) of sharing the largest meal of the week. From us will be lacking the ravioli or fusilli , the sugo di domenica; the brasato di vitello or corniglio al forno, the insalata verde. Missing from us will also be the ciambellone, though for this L. will make an excuse to go and get a large slice to bring home, knowing this is her excuse to see his face this once this week; her way of saying, I notice that you aren’t here.
March 30, Empty space
We begin our fourth week of a nationwide lockdown. The other night our Prime Minister addressed the biggest question we all have with humility and honesty: I don’t know. I don’t know when we can return to “normal”, when the restrictions will be reduced. We’re working every day to understand the situation.
I’ve settled into this as best I can, as most everyone has by now.
In contemplating this near-global pause, I’m toying with this question today:
Why rush to fill empty time with something busy, something activity-like?
My daily life hasn’t changed all that dramatically. I go for walks in the mountains, I go to my studio; I come home. Mostly I have felt fortunate in this. There is a part of me though that has begun to feel envious of the empty space that’s been created in a lot of people’s lives by the order to stay at home. I think, when I see the lists people have created to “stay busy”, that they’re missing out on something wonderful. Enjoy the empty space! I want to say. And here I am filling space that might be empty with my usual activities, and, worse, extra ones: more time on the news, more time connecting with friends and family, more time together with my partner; more time on social media. The connection can be invigorating, and it can be draining. Of course when I say, Enjoy the empty space!, I’m talking to myself.
My artistic practice is deliberately monk-like. Empty space is essential to me. “Doing nothing” is a state rich with possibility: daydreaming, observing, contemplating, resting: just being. Deprivation from distraction heightens the senses. Numbness diminishes and all the quiet things, the things that move under the surface, become bolder; more important. Small voices finally have a moment to be heard. Small feelings get a chance to be witnessed.
In my studio now there is an empty space, blank canvas. The idea I started with isn’t one I want to follow in the end. Sometimes it’s like that. Not every idea needs to be realized. Some that are realized maybe don’t need to stay realized; they can be painted over. This blank, open space can be terrifying: What if I sit here with this blankness and nothing happens?? It can be overwhelming: So many possibilities!! And it can be thrilling: There—something is happening!! I’m making something!!
And there can be doubt: What if it’s terrible?? A total failure?? Thankfully, returning to the blank canvas and starting over is always an option, as is being kind to oneself.
Maybe all of creation is like that. Maybe during the long pause of winter things are hiding that are terrified of springing forth, or are daydreaming about how to be born; or listening for some guidance on how to emerge.
Maybe in this national, even near-global, pause there is something to be learned from surrendering to the empty space and not being so intent on filling it. What happens if I let myself rest, let my senses reach out for the quiet things?
There is one comfortable chair in my studio for days like this, for listening to a blank canvas and learning what it might like to be.
We begin our fourth week of a nationwide lockdown. The other night our Prime Minister addressed the biggest question we all have with humility and honesty: I don’t know. I don’t know when we can return to “normal”, when the restrictions will be reduced. We’re working every day to understand the situation.
I’ve settled into this as best I can, as most everyone has by now.
In contemplating this near-global pause, I’m toying with this question today:
Why rush to fill empty time with something busy, something activity-like?
My daily life hasn’t changed all that dramatically. I go for walks in the mountains, I go to my studio; I come home. Mostly I have felt fortunate in this. There is a part of me though that has begun to feel envious of the empty space that’s been created in a lot of people’s lives by the order to stay at home. I think, when I see the lists people have created to “stay busy”, that they’re missing out on something wonderful. Enjoy the empty space! I want to say. And here I am filling space that might be empty with my usual activities, and, worse, extra ones: more time on the news, more time connecting with friends and family, more time together with my partner; more time on social media. The connection can be invigorating, and it can be draining. Of course when I say, Enjoy the empty space!, I’m talking to myself.
My artistic practice is deliberately monk-like. Empty space is essential to me. “Doing nothing” is a state rich with possibility: daydreaming, observing, contemplating, resting: just being. Deprivation from distraction heightens the senses. Numbness diminishes and all the quiet things, the things that move under the surface, become bolder; more important. Small voices finally have a moment to be heard. Small feelings get a chance to be witnessed.
In my studio now there is an empty space, blank canvas. The idea I started with isn’t one I want to follow in the end. Sometimes it’s like that. Not every idea needs to be realized. Some that are realized maybe don’t need to stay realized; they can be painted over. This blank, open space can be terrifying: What if I sit here with this blankness and nothing happens?? It can be overwhelming: So many possibilities!! And it can be thrilling: There—something is happening!! I’m making something!!
And there can be doubt: What if it’s terrible?? A total failure?? Thankfully, returning to the blank canvas and starting over is always an option, as is being kind to oneself.
Maybe all of creation is like that. Maybe during the long pause of winter things are hiding that are terrified of springing forth, or are daydreaming about how to be born; or listening for some guidance on how to emerge.
Maybe in this national, even near-global, pause there is something to be learned from surrendering to the empty space and not being so intent on filling it. What happens if I let myself rest, let my senses reach out for the quiet things?
There is one comfortable chair in my studio for days like this, for listening to a blank canvas and learning what it might like to be.
March 31, Blue-eyed Cherokee
A few weeks ago I posted a drawing of this boy, done from photo references taken 3 years ago when I got the chance to meet him. He was 7 at the time. When I drew him recently, I’d been trying to decide between two possible compositions for the painting his dad commissioned. For the second option, this final painting, I’d used current photo references. His father couldn’t decide which one I should paint either.
Pick the one that would give you the most joy to paint, he told me.
When he said that, I fully expected to paint the younger version (the one I drew instead)— there was something delicate and tender about it, something I wanted to protect. However, when I opened my computer in the morning to look at the sketches I’d created in Photoshop, the image of this painting here was the image that made my heart leap.
By that point, Italy had just been locked down in an effort to control the spread of Covid-19. No one wanted what was happening to be happening. Is this really necessary? Can’t this happen differently? Is it too late for an alternate choice?? A rip was tearing open in the fabric of our normalcy, of our illusion of security, and we were falling through. There was tension between the full warm feeling of being part of a large collective effort towards the common good, and the sheer panic of seeing an uncertain future looming ahead and growing darker by the minute. I, for one, was taking turns between fighting like a cat stuck in a paper bag, and exhaustion, occasionally even surrender.
When I saw this blue-eyed Cherokee, part warrior, part magician, golden in the light, I knew I needed this energy with me now: the innocence required to face the day openly, without pretending to “know” how it will all turn out; the supreme readiness of one who stands firmly in the present moment; the sureness of one who’s security lies in the light of the sun; and the capacity for transformation of one whose main point of reference is love.
A few weeks ago I posted a drawing of this boy, done from photo references taken 3 years ago when I got the chance to meet him. He was 7 at the time. When I drew him recently, I’d been trying to decide between two possible compositions for the painting his dad commissioned. For the second option, this final painting, I’d used current photo references. His father couldn’t decide which one I should paint either.
Pick the one that would give you the most joy to paint, he told me.
When he said that, I fully expected to paint the younger version (the one I drew instead)— there was something delicate and tender about it, something I wanted to protect. However, when I opened my computer in the morning to look at the sketches I’d created in Photoshop, the image of this painting here was the image that made my heart leap.
By that point, Italy had just been locked down in an effort to control the spread of Covid-19. No one wanted what was happening to be happening. Is this really necessary? Can’t this happen differently? Is it too late for an alternate choice?? A rip was tearing open in the fabric of our normalcy, of our illusion of security, and we were falling through. There was tension between the full warm feeling of being part of a large collective effort towards the common good, and the sheer panic of seeing an uncertain future looming ahead and growing darker by the minute. I, for one, was taking turns between fighting like a cat stuck in a paper bag, and exhaustion, occasionally even surrender.
When I saw this blue-eyed Cherokee, part warrior, part magician, golden in the light, I knew I needed this energy with me now: the innocence required to face the day openly, without pretending to “know” how it will all turn out; the supreme readiness of one who stands firmly in the present moment; the sureness of one who’s security lies in the light of the sun; and the capacity for transformation of one whose main point of reference is love.